Preservation
by MildredandBobbin
Summary: There was something there, between John and Sherlock, something on the other side of platonic, but John was straight and Sherlock was undead. John thought they had all the time in the world to sort it out. Vampire!lock AU.
1. Morning

Title: Preservation

Author: Mildredandbobbin

Rating: Mature

Pairings/characters: John/Sherlock, Moriarty, Mary Morstan, Mycroft

Warnings/content: dub con sexual scenes, non-consensual restraint, sexual violence, blood and blood play, self harm, masturbation, animal sacrifice, angst, het and slash, vampires, vampire!lock, AU, vampire!Sherlock, vampire!John

Summary: There was something there, between John and Sherlock, something on the other side of platonic, but John was straight and Sherlock was undead. John thought they had all the time in the world to sort it out. Vampire!lock AU.

Notes: BTVS fusion - vampire mythology adapted from the Buffy verse with the main salient difference that it takes sire's blood as well as the victim's to make a vampire, possibly other aberrations here and there (it's been a while).

Beta: Tsylvetris (Thank you!)

Folks, I'm going to start posting this here, but if you feel it goes beyond FFnet's parameters, I'd appreciate you letting me know and I'll stop. It's up over on A03 as well. xo

**Preservation**

**Part 1: Morning**

In retrospect, John supposed he should have guessed. Really, it was obvious once he thought about it: Sherlock spent days cloistered indoors; he never seemed to eat much aside from a nibble of toast, never seemed to drink; his skin was pale as milk; there were no mirrors in the flat; and then of course there was his mind, preternaturally fast. But nope, despite the facts, despite the evidence, not once had John Watson considered that his odd new flatmate could be a vampire.

The blood bag gave it away, or more specifically, Sherlock sucking on the blood bag, face contorted monstrously, eyes a strange gold. He glanced up, expression dazed, and instantly his face changed, was normal again, eyes blue, brow no longer furrowed grotesquely, teeth no longer razor sharp.

"John," he said, lowering the bag. There were red smears on the corners of his mouth.

"Is that blood?" John put down the carrier bag with the milk and bread.

"Yes," said Sherlock.

"Right, then," said John, and he turned and walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs to his bedroom.

He took his gun out of his bedside drawer and held it. He heard a creak on the stair, saw the doorknob to his room turn, the door open. He hadn't thought to lock the door.

Sherlock stood awkwardly in the doorway. The blood had been wiped from his lips.

"I suppose you have questions," he said.

John frowned, aiming for a plausible explanation rather than the one his mind was shying from. "So...you're some sort of cannibal, then? Is that - Did Molly Hooper give you that blood?"

"I get it from Bart's, yes, but Molly isn't my supplier. Not a cannibal, no."

John shook his head and a giggle of nervous laughter escaped him. "What, you're one of those gothic types that like to play at vampires?" Contact lenses, that must be it. Or a trick of the light...

Sherlock's nose crinkled as if John had just suggested Anderson would be a perfect match for him. "I don't _play_ at anything." He looked at John meaningfully.

John blinked again, brow furrowed, and stared back. "What? You _are_ a vampire?"

"Problem?"

"Seriously?"

Sherlock's face changed. Shifted, really; suddenly his brow was more pronounced, his nose bat-like and flattened, his eyes yellow, and his already-high cheekbones even sharper. He smiled and all John saw was _teeth,_ pointed and sharp. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and a cold trickle of fear slithered down his spine. He hoped to God he hadn't pissed himself.

And then Sherlock was Sherlock again.

John exhaled, heart pounding. "What. The. Buggering. Fuck."

"Vampire, John. I'm a soulless killer. A corrupt version of the Sherlock Holmes that once was. I am the living dead."

John just stared at him.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Let me make it simple for you," he said, and began a two-sided conversation with himself. "A vampire, Sherlock? How fascinating. Can you go out in sunlight? No, it burns me to ashes. What about holy water, stake through the heart, chopping off your head? All problematic: holy water burns, a stake and removing my head turn me to dust. Garlic? Stinks but is bearable. Do you sleep in a coffin? Don't be ridiculous. But you drink blood? Yes, of course. Human blood? I said yes, don't make me repeat myself. So you feed off the living? Not if I can avoid it. Enthralling a human takes time and energy I would prefer to expend on The Work. But you have before? Yes. So you've killed people, then? Obviously, but only if they deserved it. The criminal classes are less traceable, less likely to go on record as missing persons, but I can't let anything get in the way of The Work and being wanted by the Met for serial blood draining would be something of a hinderance."

He, incongruously, took a breath, and John released one.

"Oh, and yes, I pretend to breathe, a habit that lets me pass as human and fools all but the most astute."

John took a moment to process all that.

"All right. So. What now?"

Sherlock frowned. "What do you mean, what now?"

"Now that I know your secret, are you going to kill me, turn me into one of you, or what?"

"Kill you? Why would I kill a perfectly good flatmate? You really are incredibly obtuse sometimes, John, I'm sure you do it on purpose. The only reason I'd need to dispatch you is if you decided you need to end my existence out of a sense of misguided morality, and we both know you're not going to do that. For one thing, you haven't even tried to shoot me, or run, or use the crucifix you have hanging over your bed. I put that there on purpose, by the way; you can thank me later."

"Oh."

"And the last thing I'd want to do is turn you. I've said it already, you're a perfectly good flatmate. If I turn you, you'll cease to be the man you are now. A demon will take the place of your soul and everything good, everything worthy about you will cease to be. It would change everything and that would be very annoying."

"So."

Sherlock waited. John waited.

Finally John shrugged. "I think I'll just pretend we never had this conversation."

Sherlock abruptly relaxed and it was only then that John realised he'd been tense. Anxious, maybe?

When he turned to go, John called him back. "Sherlock?"

Hand on the doorknob, he turned. "Yes?"

"Do that face thing again."

Sherlock did and snarled.

John whistled through his teeth. "Amazing."

"People don't usually say that."

"What do they say?"

"Oh my God, please don't kill me."

John grinned. "Fair enough."

And Sherlock's lips twitched up at one corner before he all but fled downstairs.

* * *

In moments of lucidity, the memories of this body came unbidden.

A name: John.

Places: Afghanistan, London. He remembered (easier to accept these thoughts as _his_ rather than as mere clutter and debris embedded in the brain, the organ that ran this curious new flesh he wore) this place, Baker Street. This flat. Knew that downstairs there were two armchairs, a skull on the mantlepiece, chemistry set in the kitchen.

His sire—the brightest of all the memories, the sharpest. _Sherlock._

Odd to assign names to the human cattle, but these too came with this body: Lestrade, Mrs Hudson, Harry, Molly, Bill, Mike.

This had been _his_ room. There was his wardrobe, there his desk, this was his bed. The walls were padded now, soundproofed, the windows boarded, cloaked in heavy curtains and soundproofed as well. There was a new lock on the door. The light was out and it should have been dark, but John could see as clear as day. The crucifix above the bed was missing, a silhouette in the faded wallpaper all that was left. John wondered if that counted.

Then always the hunger and the need would come washing over him and John would scream, lost in rage and pain.

* * *

John pulled at the chains tethering him to the bed. The muscles of this body were so weak. He strained until the pain in his wrists was no longer tolerable and the tang of blood filled the air. It hurt enough to stop but did not concern him. It would heal again soon. It always did.

He could smell _him._ Downstairs. Hear him. It had been two days since the last visit.

Hunger was a constant presence.

He could control this body better now. Fine motor skills, his brain helpfully supplied. He could change, too, at will now, not just as an auto-response to the presence of sustenance or his sire. He felt different when he changed, stronger, furious, as if he could destroy the world. It was a pleasant thought.

This body had cravings: blood and his sire. Best of all, his sire's blood.

The need burned in his chest, along his veins, his parched tongue.

He _ached._

He was naked. He could recognise that now. He wasn't sure where his clothes had gone; maybe he'd torn them off. He remembered ripping and shredding. His sheets were torn and he had no pillow.

The human part of this body reacted oddly to stimuli. His sire's presence made him hard and he struggled against his chains, unable to touch or even turn to rub against the bed.

His sire ignored it, that particular need. Gave him blood. Left him.

John wanted.

He keened.

* * *

Sherlock often claimed to be a soulless killer, but John had known better. Even though there was apparently a demon haunting the body of a brilliant consulting detective, how could someone without a soul play such aching beauty on a violin? How could someone without a soul dash through London, so incandescent and marvellous, and save the girl and catch the villain? How could someone without a soul be so glorious? How could someone without a soul sit on a stool in the kitchen, in his pyjamas, bare feet curled over each other, dark curls tousled, a piece of toast between his teeth, a pen in hand, glaring at a microscope as if it were a personal affront, and then look up, blinking owlishly, when John spoke?

The first time John saw Sherlock kill a human, they were on a case. A man had raped and murdered two teenaged girls and was on his way to a third. John saw Sherlock's demonic face, saw him sink those bright fangs into the man's carotid, saw him drink until the man's leg stopped twitching.

John had already killed his own share of men, villains and enemy soldiers alike, and couldn't bring himself to care.

Sherlock looked up, face turning back to human form, dismay written across his features.

John shook his head, because no, there was nothing to be ashamed about, nothing.

"That—that was _beautiful,_ you're fucking amazing, you know that?" he gasped and he pulled Sherlock to his feet and Sherlock panted and wiped at his face and seemed so pleased that John licked his lips thoughtfully and almost—

* * *

He was hoarse from screaming now.

His sire was here and John's blood cried out to him. He strained at his bonds but his sire did not offer his wrist.

He stood, watching John. He didn't speak.

He approached, carefully, and John grasped for him but his chains held him and he couldn't reach. His sire held a plastic pouch to his mouth. It was cold and smelt wrong but he gulped it down greedily when the coppery taste of the blood hit his tongue. It dulled the noise in his head and he had a glimmering of thought, but then it swirled away and he fell into slumber.

* * *

Once, his grandsire came to see him. Mycroft, this new body's memory supplied. John could smell it, the bloodline, and bared his throat in submission as befitted his position.

His grandsire stood close beside his sire, two slim tall figures silently watching him before leaving again, locking the door behind them.

"You should simply put him out of his misery, Sherlock," he heard his grandsire say. "Do you intend to keep him chained like that forever? You would be doing him a favour, letting him go. That soul of his with which you were so enamoured is long gone."

"He's my responsibility, Mycroft," his sire hissed.

"Sentiment? Really? I think sometimes you forget you're supposed to be evil."

"I—" his sire began, but the rest of his words were lost.


	2. Drowning

Warnings/content: non-consensual restraint, masturbation, blood.

Thanks to my awesome beta- Tsylvestris. Here is the next chapter because I am nice and she is awesome.

**Part two: Drowning**

"I will never turn you." Sherlock spoke against his shoulder, quietly, perhaps thinking John was asleep. He wasn't, he'd just been resting his eyes during a boring bit of the movie. They lounged together, against each other, on the sofa.

"Why not?" he asked. "Not...not that I want you to. I just—well. I wondered."

"I can see the colour of your soul. It's what I do, John. My observations of earthly things, I could do all that when I was human, but now it all links together. I see a higher truth, the exact nature of a person's soul."

John played with Sherlock's long fingers in the dark. It was safe to do that, in the dark. "What colour is my soul, then?" he asked, only half believing it.

"Your soul is breathtaking," Sherlock rumbled against his shoulder. "It's golden, the colour of bravery, loyalty, honour, and truth. It's been tinted with taking lives and saving lives, two-fingered typing and toast with jam and tea in the morning. It shines like sunshine and glows when you think I'm brilliant. If I turned you, your soul would be gone. To lose such a soul would be a desecration, a tragedy of the first order."

John's heart beat loudly in his ears.

"Oh," he said.

And he could have sworn Sherlock kissed his shoulder. In fact he was pretty much certain, so he turned his face into the mop of unruly curls and pressed a kiss there in return.

* * *

His sire tossed the pouch of blood at him now at feeding time, staying well out of his reach. John's chains had been lengthened so he could move now on the bed, but he strained at their limits all the same.

His sire never stayed now and John saw even less of him.

The need was worse than ever without his sire's blood in his veins, without his presence.

He lay staring at the wall, lost in the maelstrom of hunger, of fury, of loss.

Time passed erratically. The day was shut out, the windows blocked with heavy curtains, the walls padded to stop his cries bothering the humans downstairs and next door. He could feel the sun, its pull, but his sense of time was confused by bouts of unconsciousness, madness, and lucidity.

He scrambled upright as the door opened, his sire's scent making his mouth wet with hunger and want. His sire watched him, pouch of cold, stale blood in his hand. John knew there was better, in the humans outside, in his sire's veins, _better_.

Soon he would toss it to John and leave. This moment, brief seconds, was all he had.

His sire always turned a deaf ear to his begging, his curses, his howls and whimpers. He had to try something else.

John's mouth moved, voice rusty, throat raw. "Sherlock."

His sire flinched.

"Sherlock," he repeated, voice cracked but working now. His brain supplied words and John used them. "I'm all right now. You can let me go." He rattled his chains meaningfully.

Sherlock inhaled sharply. "John."

John felt a surge of something bright at the word. At the recognition. If his sire would free him they could hunt together. Together they would be magnificent.

Sherlock averted his eyes and tossed John the bag of old, dead blood.

Rejection was nearly a physical blow. He took a mouthful of blood and spat it in his sire's face.

Sherlock wiped at the splatters with his wrist and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

John stared after him, bitter disappointment in his throat. He drank the remainder of the blood without tasting it.

He could touch himself now though, and that's what he did, wanking viciously, with borrowed blood running through his veins and his sire's scent still in his nose to make him hard.

* * *

John wasn't sure if it was even an act anymore. He no longer knew where he started and this body ended, which were his thoughts and which were the product of thirty-nine years of human life. Symbiosis.

His sire (his thoughts, definitely his: primal—sire, blood, need, hunger, want) stood in the doorway.

John licked his lips. Unconscious auto-response from his body or a present day reaction to the scent of his sire? Sherlock's eyes darted to his lips; the former, then. Good. It was important to remind him, _show _him. John was able to stay human now in the presence of his sire. Another good thing. Must keep up the pretence. He _is_ John. It was the only way he would be freed.

"Sherlock? Please? Get me out of these things, please?"

"You're not him."

He looked at his sire pleadingly. "I am. I'm just like you now. A vampire. Like you. Let me go and we can be together again."

"No. He's gone. You're just—" Sherlock sucked in a breath. "An animated corpse."

* * *

His sire had been away for days and John's hunger was agonising. When the door opened at last he threw himself at Sherlock and was jerked back by his chains.

"LET ME GO!" His voice was broken and raw from screaming. "IF YOU WON'T FEED ME, THEN BLOODY WELL KILL ME OR LET ME GO!"

Sherlock threw him two pouches. "I was on a case."

John tore into the first plastic pouch, sucking down the cold, stale blood desperately.

"You'll be fine. I made sure to return." Sherlock was calm, cool, his expression blank. _Uncaring prick_, John's mind supplied.

He threw the empty blood bag on the ground, the edge was off his thirst but not his anger. He knelt on the bed, rocking against the chains holding his wrists.

"Oh, that makes it all right, then, does it? You leave me chained up in here like a fucking dog you've forgotten to feed because you're off chasing after one of your bloody puzzles. _Not_ fucking good enough, Sherlock!"

They both froze. That had not—those had not been simply borrowed words from this body's brain, that had been _him. _Had he become so attuned to this brain, to its thoughts and patterns, that he could spew out _his_ words without even thinking about it?

Sherlock stared for a long moment and then looked away in disgust.

It infuriated John.

"What do you want from me?" he demanded, desperate and enraged. "You're the one who made me. You're the one who keeps me here. What do you want? You don't touch me, you don't talk to me. Tell me, Sherlock, why didn't you let me die?"

Sherlock didn't answer him, didn't look at him.

"This is your _fault!" _cried John. "You did this. This is YOUR FAULT!"

* * *

John was spoiling for a fight. His sire refused to look at him now. He was prompt with his feedings but barely glanced at John. Those brief seconds of interaction were not enough, never enough. The intervening time stretched long and painful as John waited, waited and listened.

"You could have him," he said, a challenge on his tongue and in his tone, when Sherlock finally opened the door. "I'm _him_, I have his thoughts, his memories, his body, I'm as close to him as you're ever going to get. His body, to do with as you please. He wanted you, you know, before he died, but he was too afraid, too bound by convention, sexual roles. But he'd have let you, if you'd asked."

Sherlock tossed John the bag of blood, but there was a flush on his cheekbones and his gaze flickered towards him before darting away again. John grinned with satisfaction.

"You can't do it, can you? What sort of sire are you? You won't even take what you _want_."

Sherlock sucked in a breath, hand running through his hair in agitation. John sneered triumphantly.

"I know you think about it. I've seen the way you look at his body. Why else would you keep me chained here, naked? Why won't you touch me? He'd have let you. You want to. You're a coward. Yes...that's what it is, you're afraid. Why? Do you think he'll think you're some kind of freak?"

Sherlock spun around and his expression was terrible.

"_SHUT UP!" _he roared, and slammed the door behind him.

* * *

It wasn't an important day. There was nothing out of the ordinary going on, no cases, no dramas. Sherlock was sitting at the table and John had leaned over his shoulder to look at something on his laptop. Sherlock had glanced up and, as often happened, their eyes had met and suddenly, inexplicably, John was caught and if Sherlock's phone hadn't buzzed _just then_ he knew he would have kissed him.

But the moment was broken and John moved away and Sherlock was distracted by the text.

But he knew he would have done it, and he also knew with complete certainty that Sherlock would have kissed him back.

He wasn't sure what to do with that.


	3. Need

Warnings/content: self harm, masturbation in context of self harm, non-consensual restraint, blood play.

Thanks again to my wonderful beta reader Tsylvestris. Posting this now because I have to get a piece of assessment done before I do anymore writing and I know if I start playing with this tomorrow I won't do anything else.

**Part 3: Need**

"I want you," John pleaded.

Sherlock closed his eyes for a moment, then tossed him the pouch and turned to go. That voice, those words, in combination with that body, tempting him beyond endurance. He could smell John's ejaculate and the thought of what John had been doing, alone on that bed, made him weak. As usual, John was hard, his erect penis lying taut against his belly, flushed and beading with precome. Sherlock tried to keep his eyes averted. John had torn his clothes to shreds during his first few days while the demon had raged in the confines of its human shell. Now Sherlock couldn't risk unchaining him to rectify this problem.

It wasn't John, it was a reaction of the demon form to stimuli. Not John.

"_Please_." John's voice, needy, begging. John lying splayed out, lifting his hips, stroking his cock, offering himself. John wanting _him._

Sherlock hesitated at the door, gripping the handle tightly for a moment before wrenching it open and stumbling out.

* * *

Sherlock knew the exact moment when he realised he was in love with John Watson. It wasn't when John shot the serial-killing cabbie, or when John fought with him against the Golem, or when John told him he was _fantasticamazingbrilliant_. No, it was something ridiculous and simple. They had been eating breakfast and Sherlock had been watching the way the sunlight shafted in John's hair, making it more gold than grey, a bright halo, and he'd wondered at how the mere presence of light rays reflected by hair cells could capture his attention, and then John had looked up and seen him staring and had smiled. Simply smiled and taken a bite of toast, and the vision had filled Sherlock's dead heart with such joy that he'd thought he might shatter.

Improbable. Love.

He was a soulless demon. He knew that better than anyone (he'd hated his human self, and quite frankly the change had been freeing, a release from the pettiness of human existence). According to reliable sources (his sire, pompous arse that he was, did _know_ about their kind), love should not be possible. It certainly shouldn't be encouraged.

_Caring is not an advantage, Sherlock._

But John Watson was exceptional. How could he not love him? John was made to be loved and Sherlock revelled in the delicious ache of it.

* * *

John bit his own wrist and sucked at the wound. The taste of his sire still lingered, even now, countless days after he'd stopped feeding John with his own blood. He was hard again at the taste and he stroked himself with his other hand as he sucked on his wrist.

Blood and his sire. Two cravings. Assuaged. Briefly. Perfect masturbation.

John had given up the screaming, the begging, the insults. Now each day as he felt the sun reach its apex he lay still and quiet, listening, waiting.

Now when his sire came, John would speak. Regurgitate memories verbatim, spill them out as he touched himself, his loins stirring just from his sire's scent; as he stroked his cock, showing his sire what he should be doing to John by right—until the door slammed and he was alone again save for a plastic pouch of cold, dead blood.

Biting his wrist felt good. It felt like _something_. A different pain.

He punctured his arm next, a lovely straight line of marks along his brachial artery to the crease of his elbow. He repeated it on the other side.

He could reach the soft skin of his inner arm. He couldn't bite his thighs but he could scratch. Lovely long lines of red. The scent was enough to keep him hard for a while.

He barely noticed when Sherlock arrived.

"Stop that!" Sherlock barked sharply.

John looked up at him curiously from where he was tonguing a new bite on his right arm, left hand firmly on his cock.

"_Stop hurting him_," Sherlock bit out, taut, distressed.

Realisation dawned. At last, John had something to offer, to bargain with. He grinned.

"Unchain me, Sherlock," he said. "Or so help me, I'll mutilate him beyond repair. I can do it. If I were to sever a finger, do you think it would grow back, or not? You won't touch him, he probably doesn't even need a cock."

His sire's expression was torn, devastated. "John—you don't understand."

He bit again.

"Something else—" Sherlock gasped. "What else—"

"You, then," said John, eyeing his sire carefully. "Fuck me. Let me feed from you. I'll stop then."


	4. Becoming

**Warnings: **Dub con sexual scenes, violence, sexual violence, non-consensual restraint, angst, blood and vampire stuff.

Thanks again to my amazing beta Tsylvestris.

Once again, please let me know if you feel this is too full on for FFnet, if you have concerns, I would prefer to remove it than have it reported. Thank you.

**Part 4: Becoming**

The words hung in the air between them: _fuck me, let me feed from you_.

His sire shortened the chains at his wrists instead, pulling his arms straight and out of reach of his fangs. John stuck his tongue out insolently, and bit. Bright red blood welled in his mouth.

Sherlock slapped him.

John stared up at him balefully, reproachfully, but his heart was singing at the contact, the attention.

His sire's face was stark as he gripped John's throat in a large hand. "You are not him," he growled through gritted teeth. "You will _never_ be him. I will _not _let you hurt what's left of him."

John tilted his chin to meet that dark gaze and sneered.

Sherlock's left hand stayed at John's throat as he closed the palm of his right hand around his cock. John shivered at the contact and moaned. At last. At last.

Sherlock jerked him off with a quick roughness, but touch-starved and craving his sire as he was, it worked. Pinned at the throat, his sire looming over him with demon eyes glowing gold, he thrust up into Sherlock's fist. He gasped out as he hovered on the edge, and then Sherlock lifted his hand from about his neck and thrust his wrist against John's lips. He bit, and as the coppery sweetness hit his tongue he came, sucking desperately on his sire's wrist as his orgasm wracked his body.

Slowly he came down, with small jerks and shudders, tonguing at the last traces of blood as his sire's wounds closed over and his own demon receded. He lifted his gaze and saw Sherlock, human-visaged now, staring down at him, expression blank and impassive. Sherlock drew his wrist away, wiping it delicately with a handkerchief before adjusting his shirt cuff. He wiped the handkerchief over John's belly where his come had pulsed and then tossed the sodden material on the floor.

Abruptly overtaken by searing embarrassment, John turned his face away.

He heard Sherlock sigh, and then fingertips ran along his right arm. He jerked as Sherlock suddenly gripped his wrist and ran his wet tongue over the damaged flesh. He turned to watch as his sire laved along the bite marks on his right arm before climbing over him to repeat the gesture on his left and then shifting down his body to do the same to the angry scratches on his thighs. He clenched his teeth, trying not to shiver or betray how much this attention was affecting him.

When Sherlock was done he sat up, glancing only once, disdainfully, at John as he then stood.

"We have an understanding, yes?" he said crisply.

John swallowed, his throat thick, weak and humiliated by his needs. "Yes," he choked out.

Sherlock smoothed his jacket, plucked up the unused bag of blood, and left the room, slamming the door behind him.

He had not loosened John's restraints.

* * *

Sherlock stood outside the door to John's room for a long time before the next feeding, forehead pressed to the cool wood.

It wasn't John, he reminded himself.

But it was John's body, John's face, John's voice, John's eyes.

He had John's mannerisms, John's speech patterns now, too. The demon was assimilating.

It was too much, too much to ask Sherlock to keep resisting when it was John's body offered to him in John's voice, John's body hard for him, John's body he was bringing to orgasm.

Sherlock didn't think it was merely the sire/childe bond—he didn't remember feeling any desire for Mycroft during those early stages, in those dark fledgling days locked away by his brother, his sire. Possibly the lack had been due to the original kinship between them, an existing blood relationship, or perhaps he _had_ felt it and they'd both just agreed to delete it out of a sense of decorum.

The treacherous thought that maybe John had felt some hidden yearning for him while he was alive was too tempting. Sherlock shut his eyes and again questioned his plan.

He couldn't free him; he was too new, too unstable. He'd escape the flat, take a life. Mycroft wouldn't allow an uncontrolled fledgling to live. He would have to wait and Sherlock would have to hope.

He hesitated another moment, then pushed open the door.

John was watching him from the bed (disconcerting, how easily he called _it,_ John), that fit, compact body stretched out and on display. Sherlock had always suspected that John's body had been toned and nicely trim under those appalling (lovely) clothes. This had not been the way he'd wished to find out. Still, he had to restrain the urge to crawl onto the bed and examine every inch of fit, neatly muscled, former army doctor.

"Can you loosen these?" John tugged demonstrably at the restraints at his wrists. Lucid. That was good. Sherlock supposed his blood had longer longevity than the bagged product.

Sherlock's sharp eyes swept over him, clinical now instead of lascivious. His arms were still tethered tightly, so hadn't been able to inflict new damage on John's body. His tongue and mouth seemed fine.

"You won't hurt yourself again," Sherlock said. An order, not a question.

John swallowed and looked at him and Sherlock tried not to react when he saw John's prick thicken and smelt his arousal. The thought of that prick, hard and firm in his palm, his other hand at John's throat, and later, John's lips on his wrist, didn't help his resolve. His own body responded traitorously.

John cleared his throat. "If you keep feeding me, if you take me, no, I won't need to," he said quietly.

Sherlock shied away from the implication in John's quiet words, more damning than any shouted curse. This was his fault.

* * *

John saw Sherlock flinch and turn away sharply. He undressed with his back turned, folding his garments neatly and placing them on the dresser. Then, still avoiding eye contact, he rummaged through John's bedside table.

Anticipation coiled low in him as Sherlock palmed his bottle of lube and climbed back onto the bed, crouching between his thighs. John saw his prick hanging flaccid in its nest of dark curls and his stomach clenched, shamed at this obvious physical rejection. Still hopelessly aroused, he turned his face away.

He felt Sherlock lean over him, stretched out as he was, felt him grasp his wrist again and then lick at the faint mark still present there, along the fading bite marks on his arms and then down to soothe the remaining traces of the scratches on his thighs. John quivered and gasped at the gentle, almost tender touch, but when he glanced towards his sire, Sherlock's expression was not kind.

Sherlock sat back on his heels and squeezed lube onto his fingers. This was unknown territory for John's body, and what he knew was about to happen was intricately linked in his brain with points of identity and deep-seated neuroses. He couldn't bring himself to care, though. Any clatter from his former life was drowned out by one resounding fact: his sire was going to have him.

When he looked down again, he saw with a surge of relief that Sherlock was swelling now, his prick red and hardening. He couldn't help but stare at the erection, jutting, flushed and purposeful, from the thatch at his groin, and the sight made his hunger worse, needing urgently to submit to his sire's needs. He splayed his thighs wider, pulled them up, presenting himself, fiercely joyful that finally his sire would give him what he needed.

Sherlock was thorough in his preparations—presumably in deference to this body, not its occupant—opening John carefully with his fingers, the new, unfamiliar sensation wrapping itself around John's nerve endings and making him push into the touch, but he still took John without preamble, without the consideration of a lover.

John shuddered with the stimulation, just on the pleasure side of pain, and Sherlock didn't wait for him to adjust to the burning stretch but began to move straightaway with rough, efficient thrusts. He grunted but did not protest, not when this raw sensation was so much better than anything he'd felt in this lifetime. Not when he had his sire against him, inside him. He lay loose-limbed and willing, taking everything Sherlock would give him.

Sherlock turned his face away, but John didn't. John drank in the sight of him: his lean, pale body; the muscles flexing with each powerful snap of hips; the long, elegant line of his neck; the faded mark where he'd been bitten when turned. John braced his hands against the headboard to stop from being driven into it with each thrust.

_His _sire, _his_ Sherlock, even if it was only for this moment that he had him. His cock twitched, neglected and hard against his stomach, and John moaned, the building pleasure of each hard thrust coiling tightly inside him.

Sherlock's jaw was clenched tight and he bit his bottom lip as he moved with urgency now, the sinews on his neck straining, the delicious scent of his heated blood calling to John. He grunted as he jerked finally against John, shuddering his orgasm into his body and then pressing his wrist against John's mouth. John came then, too, eyes clenched tight, mouth filled with the sweet, intoxicating blood of his sire.

When he opened his eyes, Sherlock was staring down at him, face twisted with revulsion.

And something more: despair.

* * *

Sherlock stood in the hot spray of the shower, trying to sluice away John's scent. He wept soundlessly, leaning against the tiles, shoulders shaking, filled with self-loathing and disgust. Finally the water turned cold and he shut it off, wiping at his face and sucking in a stupid, useless breath. Foolish sentiment. It had been his only option. He could not allow the demon to disfigure John, even if it meant rendering this service and indulging the creature's base lusts.

(He had wanted it, God help him, he'd wanted it.)

Later, dry and fed, he returned to his research. Failure was not an acceptable outcome.

* * *

John didn't know how long it would be before he saw his sire again, but as he sensed the sun rising to the same point as his usual feeding time, the door opened.

Sated so thoroughly the previous day, once his sire had left, his desire had abandoned him to humiliation in the face of Sherlock's disgust. Now he cringed at the way this body and demon alike responded to Sherlock's presence, to his gaze. He grit his teeth and lifted his chin. He would not beg today. Yesterday would be enough to keep him for a few days yet.

His sire had a plastic pouch. His gaze swept over John, still chained the way he'd left him, with lube and Sherlock's come between his arse cheeks and his own dried fast on his belly.

He left, returned with a basin and flannel, and cleaned John quickly, with little gentleness. He turned aside while he undressed and again folded his clothes neatly on the dresser before climbing onto the bed. He changed into his demonic face and drained the blood bag, then threw it aside.

Returning to human form, he uncapped the lube, still lying on the bed from the day before, and began clinically preparing John's arse. Any hurts had healed overnight, as had the older bites and scratches on his body. John didn't argue, but he refused to acknowledge his growing arousal, tried to quieten the tremble in his limbs, the yearning towards each point of contact with his sire. He cringed in embarrassment at the frisson that ran through his limbs as he saw Sherlock's erection rising between his thighs.

Sherlock avoided his eyes as he entered him, a shudder running through his lean torso, a flush upon his cheeks. He stilled for a moment and bent his head as if overcome.

"You want this," John gasped in realisation. The knowledge twinned with humiliation made him lash out with the only means left to him. "You do. Finally you're allowed to touch him. And you can't get enough because you know, don't you, that if you hadn't done this to him you wouldn't have had this chance. Wouldn't have offered you his arse like this, gagging, greedy—"

"Shut up!" Sherlock's face changed, demonic and golden, and he fucked into John hard, wrenching a shocked gasp from him. "You are nothing," he spat as he drove forward viciously. "How could you even _begin_ to understand what he meant to me?"

John's mouth twisted in grim triumph. The fucking was too rough, too brutal to be anything but pain, but it was something rather than nothing, something other than ignored and forgotten. It meant he'd affected Sherlock, had shaken him loose from that cold disregard.

His sire's demon eyes glowed gold and green, and he bore down on John, folding him nearly in half, driving into him with growled rage. Fear rattled down his spine in the face of Sherlock's fury, and it was John who turned his face away this time, grunting in pain against each brutal thrust. He bit his own lip and tasted his sire in the metallic tang.

There was a low animal sound, more whine than growl, and Sherlock's rhythm faltered as he shoved the heel of his hand against John's mouth. John groaned in relief and repentance as he bit and suckled, floating on pain and the intoxicating taste. He turned his head, lifting his eyes to meet Sherlock's, who stiffened against him on the brink of orgasm, demonic visage gone, staring down at him with blue-green eyes and paling features.

John's own face shifted back. Sherlock looked ruined, lost. His dead heart clenched with sudden, terrible sadness. "Ah, Sherlock," he sighed, defeated.

Sherlock whimpered, "_John." _And he came with a desperate sob.

Afterwards, he cleaned John and lengthened the chains at his wrists. He didn't say anything.

* * *

Sometimes John thought that maybe he had non-platonic feelings for Sherlock, in those seconds when John couldn't breath for how brilliant Sherlock was, or in an overwhelming wave of fond affection for the git. Those moments when Sherlock stared into his eyes and John met his gaze straight-on and somehow got lost there, in blue-green irises and darkened pupils.

Sometimes John thought that maybe Sherlock felt the same, in those times when he'd find Sherlock watching him with an odd expression, or when John had a date and Sherlock was so blatantly jealous that John called him on it, at least twice. When John fell asleep on the sofa watching bad telly and woke to find himself drooling on Sherlock's shoulder, their hands entwined and Sherlock's head resting back against his, totally relaxed. So yeah, sometimes, there seemed to be something there, something that was on the other side of platonic. But John was straight and Sherlock was dead.

John used to think they had all the time in the world, Sherlock and him, to work out this thing between them. He wasn't going anywhere; Sherlock wasn't going anywhere.

Then he died.


	5. Reminiscent

**Warnings:** violence, non-consensual restraint, vampire sexy times, blood and biting and all that sort of shenanigans, angst.

Thanks as always to the lovely Tsylvestris for amazing beta reading and just generally being awesome.

**Part 5: Reminiscent**

Sherlock thrust into him, no viciousness this time, but still coldly, clinically, as a duty to be finished as quickly as possible. Each deep stroke drove the air from John's lungs and he sucked in another on the withdrawal. It was the first time they'd done this with John's hands less tightly restrained, and for a while he lay still, gripping the headboard. Sherlock was looking to the side, avoiding John's gaze, that same bleak expression of defeat and guilt staining his pale face.

Out of nowhere the image seized him: reaching both hands to Sherlock's throat and squeezing, twisting the chains around his neck and pulling until his head—

Something fierce tore through him. He could kill Sherlock in this moment, unsuspecting and caught up as he was in his self-loathing—and suddenly John couldn't stand it anymore, this weakness, this submission and _grovelling _in the face of his sire's repugnance_. _Day and night chained to the bed, bored and alone and despised. Before he'd even realised what he was doing, he'd grabbed Sherlock by the biceps and flipped him over, still straddling him, pinning him to the bed, and pulled the chain attached to his left wrist tight across his throat.

John's face shifted into its demonic form and he growled, low and menacing, as he glared down at his sire, all the anger and fury that had been simmering below the surface suddenly free.

Sherlock stared up at him in shock, his hands grabbing at the chain digging into his throat.

John grinned viciously. Sherlock was the one trapped now, at _his_ mercy. He could kill him, fuck him, bite him, do whatever he wished to him.

"John," Sherlock choked out, expression wary and on the edge of panicked. "Stop."

The red tide in his mind ebbed, just a little, and John blinked, realising with a tingle of fear the enormity of what he'd done. He barely stopped himself from whining in apology and offering his throat to his sire in submission.

Even if he did kill Sherlock, what then? He'd be trapped here with the corpse of his sire, with still no way to escape short of mutilating his wrists and ankles, perhaps actually wrenching them off to pull out of the tight metal cuffs. He wasn't sure his body could repair that.

How long before someone noticed and came looking for Sherlock? Missed _Sherlock,_ since no one seemed to have missed _John_ yet. Or did they think he was dead? He had no idea. Had there been a funeral?

Ice trickled down John's spine: he was _dead_. Actually _dead_. He reflexively sucked in a breath as terror overtook him and with sudden clarity he remembered everything: the sharp searing pain, the blood, the struggle to breathe, the greying-out, and Sherlock, desperate and panicked, holding him, chanting his name, his wrist at his mouth. His blood. Sherlock's blood—

He stared down at his sire. His former friend. Sherlock looked back at him, expression wary and carefully shuttered.

John's face shifted back to human form and he adjusted his hold on the chain. Tentatively he raised his right hand and Sherlock's eyelids fluttered closed as John gently touched his fingers to his cheek. John swallowed, still seeing in his mind's eye Sherlock's anguished face as he had clutched at John's body, trying to staunch the bleeding.

John trailed fingertips to that perfect bow-shaped mouth and Sherlock's eyes shot open, startled, as John traced along his bottom lip. His heart clenched. He cupped Sherlock's cheek and his sire turned his face into John's palm with a small, hurt sound. He nuzzled, and John slid his thumb into his mouth, felt blunt teeth close around it. His chest was tight. He was taking audacious liberties and his sire was underneath his hands, between his thighs, deep inside him.

Sherlock was still hard.

A frisson of arousal ran straight to his groin. He rocked on Sherlock's erection, feeling its hard length slide within him. Sherlock's face flickered and he nipped John's thumb, the sharp sting sending a delicious shudder through his body and making him clench around Sherlock's cock. He watched, fascinated, as Sherlock sucked on his thumb, rolling his tongue around it, blissed, his hands falling to rest on John's thighs, to glide up to his hips.

He groaned and began to move more forcefully, rising and falling on Sherlock's cock, relishing the sensation of control, of having Sherlock still restrained under his hands, of controlling his own penetration, of the pull of his sire's mouth on his thumb.

He whined as Sherlock's large hand closed around his erection, and bent forward, overcome by pleasure and arousal. Sherlock lifted his other hand to slide his own forefinger into John's mouth.

John changed his face long enough to slice it deeply with fangs, and metallic sweetness flowed over his tongue. Sherlock's hand moved on him with quick, firm strokes, and with whimpered gasps, he rode his sire to orgasm, spilling across Sherlock's stomach and chest in an obscene mark of ownership. _His _sire. _His _Sherlock. _His._

Sherlock's hooded gaze was locked on his, John's hand slack against his cheek, thumb still loosely in his open mouth, the chain still across his neck, throat working against the restraint. He shifted his sticky hand to John's hip, digging his fingers in to hold him still, and bucked up into his still-shaking body. John sucked hard on his finger, and with a broken cry Sherlock stiffened and came, shuddering into him.

They hung suspended in the moment, motionless, John astride Sherlock, staring at each other, dazed and limp. Then John lifted the chain from Sherlock's throat. It had been rubbed a little, the skin broken, but he hesitated, resisting the urge to lick and soothe, not daring to take further liberties with his sire. Instead he rolled to the side, onto his back again.

Sherlock lay there for a moment longer and then sat up on the edge of the bed, with his back to John.

He cleared his throat, tossed John the flannel from the bedside table, and then, quickly gathering his clothes, left the room.

* * *

Moriarty stood by the pool. His features flickered, mercurial, between vampire and human. John stood behind him, wrapped in Semtex. Brave, so very brave.

"I will burn the soul out of you," Moriarty said.

"I have it on good authority I don't have one," Sherlock told him.

"Oh, but we both know that's not true." He smirked.

He let them go. Walked out of the pool and the snipers' dots flickered out.

Sherlock stripped the bomb from John's body, threw it across the floor.

"All right? Are you all right?" he demanded.

"Sherlock—"

A single shot rang out and John crumpled. The scent of blood poured into the air, dark red seeping across John's chest.

Panicked, Sherlock fell to his knees beside John, grabbing him as he began to convulse.

"John? _Nonononononono_—_JohnJohnJohn_—You can't. You can't—"

_Please, God, let me live. _ John didn't want to die. Not then, not now. John _couldn't _die. Sherlock wouldn't allow it.

In those few seconds between death and life, as John's life drained from his body, Sherlock sliced his own wrist and put it to John's lips. He stroked his cheek, his throat, helped him swallow. And then he held him and watched his lifeblood soak his shirt, his jacket; flow across the floor, diluted with water spilled from the pool. He lifted one bloody, shaking finger from John's chest and put it to his own lips. One taste. That was all.

* * *

John was sitting on the bed reading a book he'd found in the bed stand when Sherlock came to feed him. He had kept to their agreement, had not bitten or scratched himself. He felt calmer each day since this arrangement had begun, more lucid. The red haze when he hungered was receding and his lust, sated as it was so regularly, didn't overwhelm him so desperately. He felt more comfortable in this body now, the lines between Before and After nearly erased. Sometimes, with a start, he recalled that he wasn't actually John Watson.

Sherlock looked tired and John, with a sense of deja vu, suddenly found himself wondering if he was sleeping properly, feeding regularly without him to—Oh. No, that wasn't his place anymore. Not _him. _That was John Watson Before. It was easy to forget. He was no longer Sherlock's best friend, the one person the mad genius had allowed into his life. No more nagging about sleeping or eating or drugs or smoking (and no, just because he was already dead, that did not make it any more acceptable). No more chasing after the silly git, trying to keep him safe when he hared off. Now he was nothing. Just a burden locked upstairs. Sherlock's dirty little secret.

"On your stomach," said Sherlock with a swift glance over his body. Ah, it made sense. John had not been punished for his rebellion the day before—he'd expected Sherlock to tighten his chains again, afterwards, but instead he'd simply left. Now his sire wasn't taking the chance of this reversal of position happening again.

John glanced at him but obeyed. His chains clinked as they crossed.

He lay still, listening to his sire undress, breathing in his scent. He could smell his desire already, a sharp primal thing that went straight to John's cock and made him spread his legs. He wasn't going to protest the change in position. Sherlock was keeping his end of the bargain; as long as he got this, it didn't matter how.

He felt Sherlock's finger, slick and cold with lubrication, probe and enter, opening him resolutely. He pushed back on the intrusion, welcoming it. Sherlock shifted, his finger still in John's arse. He felt Sherlock's mouth on his shoulder and then a sudden sharp sting. He smelt blood and realised with a frisson of excitement that Sherlock had bitten him, just above his old military wound. Arousal curled in his belly. He'd enjoyed the reciprocal feeding yesterday, but had not expected it again. He groaned. Sherlock mouthed wetly down his back, slickly sliding his finger in and out of his arse. There was another sting, lower down, and then again just above his hip, followed soon after by another on his left buttock. He opened his thighs wider, lifting his arse up to Sherlock's mouth, to his finger.

Sherlock fucked him not long after that, his hand over John's mouth as he thrust into him, the force of it tugging at his chains. His thumb slipped into John's mouth to slice open on his fangs, blood spilling into his mouth as they both came.

Afterwards he panted against John's shoulder, an open-mouthed kiss over his old scar. John tensed for the immediate withdrawal, the rejection, but Sherlock stayed there for a long moment, his large hand curled over John's hip.

"John," Sherlock sighed at last, and then he was up, cleaning them both and slipping out the door, clothes bundled in his hands, and John was left behind, alone. He turned over, his chains uncrossing, and stared at the ceiling.

He heard the hot water rattling through the pipes. From downstairs there came the unmistakable sound of the shower running.

* * *

His body was too quiet. It bothered him, now he'd noticed. No pounding of his pulse in his ears as he grew afraid or angry. No loud thudding as he panted with exertion. Just a disconcerting absence of sound. The fingers of this body automatically fell to his wrist, to his throat, seeking the flutter of a pulse, and he'd forget and shift his fingers, still seeking, when he found nothing, doubting his skills, his abilities. That was the worst.

John lay very still and stopped breathing. He let his mind go quiet and emptied his thoughts.

The trouble was, he still didn't feel dead.

* * *

"Let me go," John said simply. He lay on the bed, sated with sex and blood. "How long are you going to keep me chained up here?"

"I can't let you go yet," Sherlock murmured as he lay pressed along John's back, not the second, nor even the fifth time that he had taken John this way. Each time a little more intimate than the last. He had never taken him face-to-face again. "Mycroft would have you shot with a sniper's arrow the moment you stepped outside. He wouldn't permit an uncontrolled fledgling to roam around London unchecked."

"I can control myself; you control yourself."

"I'm one hundred and forty-nine years old, idiot," snapped Sherlock. "Obviously I can control myself." He pressed his open mouth against John's shoulder. "I can't control _you_." He sighed. "I—I didn't mean—for this—"

John lay still. His heart should have been pounding. "I want this."

"For now," said Sherlock, and he got out of bed.

* * *

The best times had been a day or so after a case, before Sherlock had started to get bored, a quiet evening in, just the two of them, after the excitement of a week on the run chasing down criminals, rare enough that it was a nice interlude to be savoured rather than patiently endured until the next block of adventure.

There would be a fire in the hearth, takeaway leftovers sitting on the kitchen counter, and John and Sherlock in their armchairs, sitting in companionable silence. Sherlock would tap away at his laptop or read, and John would relax in his company, write up a blog post, catch up with a journal or crime novel, or watch some telly. Every now and then one or the other would make a comment, a passing remark.

John might look up and smile, seeing Sherlock deep in concentration, curly head bent over his laptop. Or he'd glance up to find Sherlock studying him with an expression that John liked to flatter himself was almost fond.

It had been so comfortable, so easy. If John had ever experienced perfect happiness, it had been then.

* * *

Sherlock was late, only a few hours, but John had been unable to keep himself from fretting. He curled up on the bed and waited, tense and anxious, anger slowly coiling like a tightly wound spring, rocking a little. The urge to bite just to have the scent of his sire's blood was becoming hard to resist. It was only the sound of the door slamming downstairs, of Sherlock not pausing but running straight up the stairs to his room, flinging open the door and tearing off his clothes that stilled the angry, hurt words on John's tongue.

Sherlock was on top of him in moments. "Incompetents in Forensics, inexcusable delays," he muttered as he licked his way down John's back, rubbing his erection against his thigh with a needy desperation so temptingly lover-like that John let himself be calmed, soothed. Sherlock paused in his ministrations to swiftly examine each of John's wrists and forearms.

"I waited," said John and he heard Sherlock hum in approval before returning to caressing the small of his back with his tongue.

* * *

"What was the case?" John asked afterwards, Sherlock's curls soft against his cheek. They didn't sweat, either of them. Sherlock's fingers had been tracing the veins on his arm and they stilled at John's question. He cursed himself for breaking the mood but then Sherlock spoke.

"You want to know?"

"Yeah, 'course. Tell me about it."

"It was tediously obvious. Only a five, really, but Lestrade insisted. He thinks—" Sherlock's fingertips pressed into John's arm. "It was a locked room—the body on the inside, no sign of a struggle—"

John hummed, drinking in the details as Sherlock described his deductions, but in his mind, this mind connected to this brain, he was somewhere else: in the streets of London, running beside a tall man in a long coat, breathless and happy and so alive.

"I should've been with you," he gasped in shattering certainty.

Sherlock was silent for a very long time.

"I miss John," he said.

* * *

It was easy to forget now that it wasn't really John, that it wasn't just a demon play-acting at being the best and most important man Sherlock had ever known. If he wasn't looking into its eyes, if he wasn't paying attention, he could just...pretend.

But then he'd see it, there in that deep blue: not sunlight or the warmth of ugly cable-knit jumpers, only a deep, fathomless darkness and in the very middle of it, _something _staring back.

In the place where John's soul had been, all there was now was a yawning, roaring nothingness and the sound of something screaming in the far, far distance.

It was waiting for him to slip. Sherlock knew it. Self-preservation, perpetuation of the species, survival. As long as he was chained he could be controlled. As long as Sherlock was careful.

As long as Sherlock kept to the bargain, John would be safe.

He had slipped, once, and knew with utter certainty that the creature could have killed him. He hadn't, however, and it bothered Sherlock that he didn't know why.

* * *

"What happened to Moriarty?" John asked him suddenly, voice muffled against the mattress.

Sherlock stilled in his ministrations, right index finger still thrust to the second knuckle inside John's arse.

"He got away."

John twisted around to look at him. "You haven't tried to catch him?"

Sherlock pushed him back onto his belly. He couldn't trust the expression on his face and he didn't want John (_it) _to see.

"I've been otherwise occupied," he said.

John was still. "I see," he said finally. "Sorry."

"This is more important."

He heard John swallow. "Oh."

Sherlock sat back, withdrawing his finger, no longer in the mood for sex. The memory, raw and terrible, of the pool was at the forefront of his mind. He lay down next to John instead, pulling him back against his body, wrapped both arms around him and held him, just held him. He felt John fold his arm over his own and squeeze his hand.

"It's okay," John whispered. "It's okay."

It was only then that Sherlock realised he'd been shaking. He ached. He sucked in a breath and then shut his eyes against John's shoulder and allowed himself to pretend. He shifted his right hand down and closed his palm around John's erection, lifted his left hand and slid his fingers into John's mouth. John whimpered and Sherlock began to stroke. John's fangs stung his fingers, and then there was a warm, wet pull as he sucked on them with soft moans as Sherlock brought him towards his orgasm.

Just for this moment, he allowed himself to believe it really was John, warm and pliant and moaning in his embrace. His arousal bloomed, sweet and tender, and he pressed his cock against John's body, frotting against him in rhythm with his strokes.

"_John_," he gasped as he felt John's ejaculate spill over his hand, the sharp, erotic scent filling his nose. John's tongue rolled around his fingers and he groaned with pleasure. Sherlock thrust once more against him and came, sucking on the mark of his turning with blunt, human teeth.

* * *

Sherlock was flush against his back, mouth pressed to his collarbone. The sex they'd just had had been breathtakingly intimate. For once he'd allowed himself to hope that Sherlock was relenting, was beginning to accept him. John closed his hand over the larger one on this chest, willing Sherlock to stay here, like this, just for a moment. It was this quiet intimacy that John craved now, more than the blood and the sex; something that told him he still meant something to Sherlock, something that for a brief moment just now he'd experienced, with Sherlock holding him close and rocking against him with whimpers and moans.

Sherlock tightened his arm and John felt him exhale with a full-body shudder.

"You loved him. You think you've lost him," breathed John. "I _am _him, you know. Same brain, same thoughts, same body. All me."

"You're not him," replied Sherlock, holding John tighter. "You can never be him. You're nothing more than a copy. You have his body, his memories, his neurons, his brain maps, but it's something else running it. Not him."

John thought about this. It seemed unreal now, the dark non-time _before_ this body. The line between what he had and hadn't done was becoming impossibly blurred. "I'm like, a, you know, clone, or a hologram, is what you're saying? Same memories but _me,_ the real John, is gone."

Sherlock went very still. "John used to watch a programme. Something idiotic—about a mining spaceship. There was a character, a holographic copy."

"Red Dwarf, yeah, that's what I meant."

Sherlock made a small sound and pressed his face hard against John's back.

Something wet dropped and slid down John's skin and then Sherlock breathed in with a thick gasp.

"Don't," he choked. "Don't do this anymore. Don't pretend to be him."

"I'm not," John said, his throat and chest tight. "I'm not pretending."

Sherlock shifted away from him, sitting on the edge of the bed. John rolled over to look at him, at his long, lean back, held straight and taut.

"Yes, you are," said Sherlock with sudden certainty. "Because the real John would never have wanted this."

John had nothing to say in reply.


	6. Falling

**Warnings:** animal sacrifice, sex, blood play, non-consensual restraint, angst, vampire stuff.

Thanks once again to my awesome beta Tsylvestris for her brilliant suggestions and wonderful editing skills. Any mistakes are of course my own especially as I can't help fiddling with things before I post.

Oh and in case you were concerned, last chapter, Sherlock did not stick the same finger he had in John's butt into his mouth, he used a different hand ;)

**Part 6: Falling**

Wearing surgical gloves, Sherlock carefully sprinkled the contents of the vial into the beaker and waved the manuscript through the resulting sweet-smelling fumes to coat it in the sticky residue. Gingerly he spread the human-skin parchment flat on the table and waited. Slowly, very slowly, the coded runes began to shift, to rearrange and reform.

With increasing anticipation, Sherlock translated as new letters coalesced until he sat back abruptly and drew a sharp breath.

He'd done it.

He had it. The name of John's soul. He had it. _He had it._

He shoved away from the table, needing to move. He paced, hands flexing and clenching in agitation. He'd done it, he'd solved it. Mycroft had said it was impossible but he'd done it.

Frowning, he regarded his clenched hands. Why was he shaking? He felt...wrong, unsettled.

He should have been ecstatic. He was _right_, he'd done it. _John_ was coming back. He should have been revelling in his own brilliance, overjoyed with the success of his research and the impending return of _his_ John. His John, brilliant, bright, warm and safe and home—

It should be that, not this...this...sick, bereft panic.

He stopped still, fisted both his hands in his hair. Forced himself to acknowledge what he was trying to ignore.

It would be over, once this was done. Everything he could have, was allowed to have, with John now, it would be gone. Over. He might lose John forever. He might never see him again.

The thought was a punch to his solar plexus and he sucked in a breath on reflex.

He paced again, then spun back to the table and looked at the manuscript, the key to John's resurrection. Poisonous, treacherous hope trickled up his spine and whispered in his ear.

He didn't have to do this. Not immediately. He could wait.

He didn't need to do it at all. He could just tear it up, delete, go upstairs, lie down next to John (_newJohnvampireJohnhisbody_) and make love to him, exactly how he'd always wanted, and keep doing that for the rest of their immortality.

It wouldn't be _John, _but he could pretend. He could teach it, ignore the myriad subtle ways in which it was not John, would never learn to be John. He could be loved, adored by this facsimile of John Watson.

It would be so very easy to pretend.

The temptation curled through him and he clutched his arms about his middle with the pain of it.

* * *

Sherlock was different this time. He didn't take his trousers off, and when John went to roll onto his stomach Sherlock stopped him. He leaned over him and traced his entire body with fingers and tongue, with an intensity to his gaze that silenced any questions. By the time Sherlock knelt between his thighs and explored from tailbone to testicles, John was already a trembling mess, drunk on his sire's touch, achingly aroused and offering himself with drawn-up knees. Sherlock caressed and probed with his tongue until John was babbling incoherently and reaching as far as his bonds would allow to run his fingers through dark, unruly curls. Sherlock took him in his mouth then, eyes closed, and John was undone. He cried out in shock as his orgasm took him, sudden and sharp.

Sherlock swallowed him down but lay on John almost immediately and offered his throat.

John, his chest tight, took it, his fangs piercing tight skin and sinking into the jugular, the quick flood and pulse of his sire's blood warm against his tongue. His body still shuddered from orgasm even as he drank his fill. He whimpered as he mouthed at the wound, licking it instinctively until the twin puncture wounds closed. Sherlock was hard against him, and he turned his face then, burying it in John's throat. John shivered as his sire re-pierced the scars from when he was turned. He shook in Sherlock's arms as he rocked against him, drinking from him, pressing his body tightly against him. He felt the warm wetness of Sherlock's ejaculation against his thigh and cried out softly.

Sherlock lay still for a long time afterwards, arms wrapped under John's shoulders, face buried still against his neck, body still trembling from the aftershocks of his own orgasm.

Finally he drew away, lifting off carefully, face averted. He sat on the edge of the bed and wiped his mouth. His hand brushed over John's calf briefly, then he bent to pick up his shirt.

John protested as Sherlock tightened his restraints, a shock after the tenderness and intensity of their coupling, but his sire paid him no attention.

He cleared his throat, his gaze flickering once more towards John, lingering on his face. For a long moment he stared at him, his expression taut and unreadable.

"Goodbye, John."

"Sherlock?" John asked, but the door was already clicking shut behind him.

* * *

John lay tethered on the bed. He'd grown accustomed to more freedom and hadn't appreciated how much he'd gained until it had been taken away. He itched, he twitched, pinned out and unable to move much at all. Unanswered questions rattled through his mind, uncertainty and concern mutating into panic and fear. From downstairs floated the notes of the violin, something aching and melancholy.

Why had Sherlock chained him so tightly? Especially after sharing so much with him. What was going on?

Finally the door opened again, but it wasn't his sire who entered the room. A smartly dressed, dark-haired young woman stood on the threshold instead, with a bag and an animal carrier cage in her hands. She was human, alive, and John could see the blood pulsing in the veins of her throat, could hear a human heart and a small, frantically beating one in the cage. His face shifted instinctively and despite having only just fed, he sniffed the air, his mouth watering. He tried to move closer but was stopped by his chains.

Just a taste. He wouldn't—

"You must be John," she said with a slight Polish accent and a businesslike smile, keeping her eyes firmly on his face, and for the first time in a long while John remembered he was naked.

She set her things on his dresser, produced a small jar of blood and a brush, and proceeded to paint a pentagram around the entire bed, drawing up the wall and over John's head so that he was completely enclosed. John watched with steadily increasing panic. Was this it? Had Sherlock decided to end this? Kill his body and send him back?

The smell of the dead blood mingled with the human woman's hot, living scent and it made John groan. He struggled to focus, asking her about the pentagram, about what she was doing. She ignored him and perched on the end of the bed, legs crossed, with her bag and the cage. John strained wildly against his chains. He gave up trying to rein in his demonic form, the temptation of blood and the warm beat of the woman's heart, so teasingly close, too much.

The woman smiled politely and began to chant.

The scent of blood and fear intensified as she brought a chicken from the carrier and, with a small finely carved dagger, deftly slit its throat.

Without warning he was enveloped in darkness, ancient fury drawn forth by the magic, blotting out the humanity he had borrowed from this body. He tugged at his bonds, panic and rage rising, magic pulling at him now with invisible threads, pulling him taut, too tight—and then the pain began. He writhed, unable to form words anymore, he was nothing but essence—

The woman's tone became high-pitched, urgent, and then her voice changed to something glittering and sharp and she spoke a single word.

John howled as everything went very bright and very white.

* * *

There was warmth, peace.

John woke with a gasp, a cacaphony of sensation— _sight-scent-taste-touch-sound_— in this mind.

He lay very still, didn't move until the spinning in his head calmed enough to let him string two thoughts together. He felt like he'd just woken up after an all-night bender. His mind was a thick fog and every thought echoed as if he were thinking it twice. There was a lingering memory as if from a pleasant dream, a sense of warmth and peace and pleasure, but behind it, still, if he looked too closely, was darkness, searing pain—

He opened his eyes and blinked. He was in his room. How—?

They had been at the pool. Moriarty had let them go, just...let them go. Sherlock had ripped off the Semtex vest, thrown it aside and—he'd seen the sniper's sight on Sherlock and then...oh fuck—John spasmed at the memory—the pain, he'd been shot again—and everything had been— Oh God— Oh God—Sherlock—Sherlock had—

John sucked in breath after breath. He fumbled at his throat, seeking his pulse— Shit. Shit. Shit. Sherlock—

Suddenly everything shifted in his head, the doubled thoughts aligned, and it was all very, painfully clear.

He was dead, and he was a vampire and Sherlock had turned him and chained him up in here as some sort of sex slave— Oh God. The things—John swallowed rising bile. He'd fed recently—his stomach clenched as he remembered his last meal—from Sherlock's throat, wrapped in his arms like a lover. And he'd _wanted _it.

Oh God. Oh fucking hell.

Memory after memory assailed him: the hunger, the fury, the _need, _blood and biting—him on his back opening his legs, _begging_ for Sherlock—Sherlock's face, bleak and miserable—disgust, distaste— John bit down on the heel of his hand and shut his eyes in horror. They'd drunk each other's blood— Oh fuck, oh bloody _hell_, he'd begged Sherlock to fuck him—_Fuck me and let me feed from you._ His arms covered in bites— Oh God—he'd _forced him to fuck him. _John cringed, shuddering with nausea at the crippling humiliation, appalled at his neediness, his complicity in his own degradation.

He wrapped his arm around his belly and shook.

With the movement came the realisation he'd been unchained. What had happened? There'd been a woman— Fighting a wave of dizziness, he rolled into a sitting position, blinking.

The woman was gone. He was dressed, wearing boxer shorts and a vest. He flexed his hands, rubbing at his wrists and ankles. His head swam and he waited for a long moment until the dizziness had passed.

He was still here. What had that woman's chanting been about, then? He felt his face shift into its demonic form and back again, as if he were merely stretching his fingers, not transforming into a monster. Nope, still...still _that._ Why had he been unchained?

Where was Sherlock? Adrenaline shot through his system, fear both for Sherlock and of him (_chained-humiliated-used_). He couldn't be here when or if Sherlock came back.

Gingerly he got to his feet, legs unsteady after such long disuse, and carefully made his way over to the dresser. It should not have surprised him that he had no reflection, but it did. In the absence of a mirror, he raised his fingers to his face carefully, felt stubble (odd; he supposed hair and nails still grew even during undeath but the growth was a lot lighter than it should have been after so many days without shaving). He scrubbed at his hair. He felt desperately in need of a shower even though he didn't smell at all; he felt filthy and unclean.

First he had to find out what was going on. Was he now free now or confined to his room?

The door had been left ajar.

Right.

His Sig Sauer was still tucked in the back of his sock drawer. He pulled on jeans and a shirt, quickly packed an overnight bag, grabbed his wallet and phone from where they were lying incongruously on the dresser (as if he hadn't just been held prisoner here for the past God-knew-how-long), and, steeling himself, gun in hand, crept out onto the landing. Light shone up from the bottom of the stairs and he carefully, shakily, edged down the staircase, pushed open the door into the living room, and froze.

The only light came from the street lamps outside. Sherlock was sat in his armchair, head in his hands, waiting. He straightened as he saw John.

Sherlock, in his rumpled pyjamas and dressing gown, seemed so oddly normal that giddy laughter bubbled up inside John. For the first time it occurred to him that maybe he'd just been having a dream. But when he slid his fingers to the pulse point on his throat, he felt the twin puncture scars and no flutter of a pulse under his fingertips.

Nope. Not a dream.

Sherlock rose to his feet and took a step towards him. "John—"

John's blood quickened, his cock stirring at the sight and scent of his sire, and it took effort to resist the urge to bare his throat. No, nope. He focused. He was dead and he was a vampire and his best friend had chained him up on his bed for weeks and fed him blood and fucked him and messed with his emotions and his head. Oh God. Anger and fear overtook him and, trembling, he gripped the door frame with one hand and levelled his gun with the other.

* * *

John.

It was John.

Sherlock's mouth was dry, his chest was tight. John. John. John. John.

He'd have known it was John even without the golden glow of his soul—his posture, his bearing, his contained fury. He aimed his gun at Sherlock and it was the most wonderful thing Sherlock could ever have hoped to see.

But he could see John's soul. It was there, still so perfect and beautiful that it left Sherlock tingling, and that was even more wonderful. It had changed: there was a patch of deep red that hadn't been there before, and a streak of bright light, and something in a repulsive shade that Sherlock's vision shied away from. His fault. That had been because of him. His stomach twisted anew.

He wanted to go to him, touch his face, look into his eyes, hold him so tightly—

He knew he couldn't. Not after everything. Besides, John had his gun and every inch of him said that Sherlock making sudden, possessive moves would be in the realm of _very not good._

No. Not good. Not...not after that. Sherlock let out a shaky breath. "John—"

"Nope, not a word," said John, and everything about his voice, his tone (_John_), made Sherlock's heart soar and break in equal measure. "No, scratch that, actually; I want some answers. What was that all about, with the woman with the chicken, the mumbo jumbo?"

Answers, yes. Sherlock's mind raced. He hadn't thought he'd be given this opportunity to explain, and had to scrabble for the right words.

"She gave you back your soul." He cleared his throat and began talking quickly—before John stopped listening and left or tried to kill him. "Polish witch, from Gliwice; technically, you were cursed—the spell is a variant of one used successfully by the Romani, designed to punish a vampire, causing unbearable grief for the lives they've taken by restoring their conscience via their soul. A conceit, of course; anyone who's dealt with human criminals knows that the presence of a mere soul hardly ensures moral behaviour and that a creature without one can make a logical choice to adhere to an ethical code. It served the purpose, however, of bringing you back and in your case it will make it easier to resist the bloodlust. The original curse installs a random soul into a vampire's body and leaves the unfortunate spirit racked with horror. I managed to modify it sufficiently so that your specific soul was restored and your lack of guilt won't interfere with the efficacy of the spell."

"My soul," said John, flatly.

"You, your spirit, your consciousness, the spark of life." Sherlock desperately searched for the right words. His tongue was cotton wool and he had never felt more ponderous and inept in either of his lives. He swallowed, painfully aware of what John must think of him after the last few weeks. If he could just explain, just make John understand— "Obviously recent events weren't ideal but I had no other option. I couldn't risk you taking a life before I had a chance to restore your soul and I needed to keep your body safe until I could bring you back."

"You could have told me. Damn it, Sherlock—" John groaned and rubbed at his face and for a wonderful moment Sherlock thought he might, _might_ understand. Then John dropped his hand and Sherlock saw the disgust and contempt on his features. "If I'd _known_ what was happening, I might not have been so fucking desperate half the time!"

"That wasn't possible, John," said Sherlock, now sunk in his own desperation. "I couldn't risk your demon circumventing my plans."

"Circumventing—" John pinched the bridge of his nose in the way that told Sherlock that what he'd done was beyond normal comprehension and _so very not good._ "I'm not—I'm not actually any different to who I was, you know that, don't you? The man you had chained to the bed upstairs, the man you've been _fucking _for however bloody long this has been, is me, was me. Who I _am_ hasn't actually changed between now and yesterday, you sodding bastard. You could have just... explained it to me, _trusted_ me. Fucking hell—"

Sherlock flinched at the implication, the accusation. But it wasn't true, it couldn't be true, because this was John now, incandescent and magnificent in his contained rage, and what had been there before had been an empty shell, a mere shadow by comparison. "No. No you're wrong, you just can't see it. That body, it's just transport—it was incomplete, a reflection, it was nothing without _you._"

John sagged against the door frame. His face twisted and he looked away for a moment, overwhelmed.

"So...I'm dead then? Undead." He waved his hand to indicate, presumably, a raft of accompanying issues.

"No one knows, apart from Mycroft." He'd let everyone believe John had finally had enough of him and left. Lestrade had been particularly irritating, trying to _help_ and take Sherlock out of himself. What would he have said if he'd known that the truth had been far worse: that John had died and his reanimated corpse had been chained in the upstairs bedroom? "You can resume your life."

John nodded sharply and levelled his gun at Sherlock again. While it couldn't kill him, it might do some damage. It was the point John was making, though, that stayed him more than anything, a message that Sherlock understood with painful clarity: _you hurt me, I don't trust you_.

"I'm going to leave now," John said. "Don't try to stop me."

Sherlock stood very still. The moment he'd been dreading had finally arrived.

"Yes. Of course," he said quietly. Of course. He had expected nothing less, had in fact informed Mycroft about John's alteration in anticipation of exactly this outcome. "John, I—" He trailed off, at a loss as to what else he could say that might actually change anything. Words of apology, pleas for forgiveness, stuck in this throat and died on his lips. Useless and ineffectual. Besides, he wouldn't apologise for what he'd had to do to protect John. He would do it again in a heartbeat. "There's blood in the fridge," he said in the end. "Take as much as you need. The details of the supplier are on the counter."

John nodded once, tightly, and then backed his way across the living room through to the kitchen. He stuffed three of the blood pouches into his overnight bag with a cold pack. Not once did he take his eyes off Sherlock until he had unlocked the door and shut it again behind him.

Sherlock moved quickly to the window, watching John step out onto the street, back ramrod straight and bearing proud.

It hurt, God, it hurt. He wrapped his arms around himself against the pain. But oh, just seeing John again, so _alive, _so bright and vibrant—this dreadful ache was a price he was willing to pay a thousand times over, just to know that John Watson existed in this world again.

The demon had manipulated him. With soft touches and urgent pleas, and small glimpses of warmth and steel, it had coaxed him to let down his guard, to indulge his foolish desires and open himself up to the improbable hope that he might have John after all. It had been a falsehood, nothing more than a trick and now he was left, raw and exposed, to face his loss alone. He had no one to blame but himself, after all, that's what demons _do_; he should know, he was one, after all.

It was only after John had disappeared from sight, down the darkened street, that Sherlock finally allowed his legs to give way and he slid onto the floor and buried his face in his hands.


	7. Begin again

Thanks as always to Tsylvestris for splendid beta reading. Keep an eye out for her new fic coming out soon (I hope!).

**Part 7: Begin again**

John knew the Work came first. It always had. Sherlock's fascination with puzzles and his need to worry at and unravel an unsolved mystery took precedence over everything. Nothing else mattered but the game, and John knew he was no exception; he'd been left standing at a crime scene often enough to be more than clear on exactly how unexceptionable he was in that regard.

John never tried to compete with anything that piqued the interest of Sherlock's massive intellect. He couldn't ask Sherlock to ignore the gravitic pull of an intriguing mystery any more than he could hope the sun might agree not to rise.

And that was okay, it really was, because John was a part of it, and John was helping and he would be there when Sherlock solved the case. He would be the one Sherlock would turn to and _beam _at, proud of himself and wanting John to be proud too. And it was all worth it, because in those moments he knew Sherlock needed him too.

* * *

John had found the rush of sensations difficult in the confined space of the flat, and outside it was far worse. Noise, scent, the glare of headlights, the flare of streetlights—even in the dark everything seemed too bright. John stood and shivered for a long moment before squaring his shoulders, lifting his bag, and marching off down the street. He spotted a CCTV camera, one which usually swivelled to follow him courtesy of his mad flatmate's micromanaging brother. This time it stayed in its place. Right, yeah, vampires probably didn't show up on video. John flipped the camera a derogatory two-fingered salute anyway.

Fuck Mycroft, fuck Sherlock, fuck all fucking Holmes fucking vampires.

The camera swivelled away. John frowned and ducked his head and kept walking. Not invisible to cameras then. Right.

He needed money. It was only when he reached the ATM that he realised that, despite Sherlock's reassurances, all his bank accounts might have been cancelled, what with his being technically dead. Heart in his mouth, he slid his card into the machine. It was fine; in fact there was more money in there than he'd thought. He withdrew some cash and then noticed the date on the receipt.

It was less than a month since the pool. All those endless days added up to less than a month.

He turned to go and startled as he heard and smelt a young man stop a few paces behind him, waiting to use the teller. Blood in the boy's veins. John could smell it. Could see his pulse in his throat, tempting, enticing. The warm, coppery tang, fresh and—

He could feel his face trying to shift, could feel the demon rising. No. No. Nonononono. It was just a kid. On a night out. Just a kid who didn't deserve to—

He sucked in a breath and clenched his fists and walked away as fast as he could.

He slipped into the next alley, leaned against the wall, tried to calm down. His head was roaring, his ears ringing, and his face ached with the effort of not changing.

No no no no no. He— no. He wasn't— He didn't—

He fumbled at the zipper on his rucksack, yanked out a blood bag, and sucked down the thick, stale liquid even as part of him wanted to gag and spit it out.

He focused on pulling air in and out of his lungs, and pushed back at the darkness in his mind. There seemed to be a spot of light in the depths and he focused on it, leaning into it.

Finally he calmed enough to set off again.

He didn't dare hail a cab in case the proximity to a warm body proved too much for his control, so he walked, dodging out of the path of the few people he passed, hurrying on his way, holding his breath so as not to get too much of their scent.

Aware of the need to find shelter from the sun the next day, he walked into the first hotel he saw and got himself a room for two nights.

He stripped off his clothes immediately and climbed into the shower. He stood under the hot spray, trying to feel warm, trying to feel clean, trying not to think about hot, warm blood there for the taking, or how his body and a dark, lost part of him keened for the tall, slim man back home at Baker Street.

He couldn't stop shaking.

* * *

Before Sherlock met John Watson, he had no time for people. He used them if they were useful and ignored them if they weren't. He neither hated nor liked humanity; humans were there to fulfil his needs—sustenance and stimuli for his mind—or they weren't.

Keeping his mind occupied was Sherlock's central preoccupation. No one, not even his brother (who perhaps was even more intelligent than Sherlock but in a way that embraced the miniscule so that even the tedium of a procedure held his attention), could understand the pain of his unoccupied mind. He took cocaine if necessary, to stop it shaking itself to pieces, to allow a single point of focus when all he had was senseless data.

Then he met John.

Short, determined, and an enigma: doctor and soldier, a psychosomatic limp, strong yet damaged, friendly and warm yet emotionally contained. John with his perfect, beautifully flawed soul. He reminded Sherlock instantly of Victor and foolish, one hundred and thirty-year old sentiment made him more susceptible to that devastating smile.

Before John, Sherlock had not cared that no one understood, or that no one appreciated his mind, or that people used him just as much as he used them (pretty, yes; clever, yes; but no one _liked_ him; they appreciated the outcome, not the process, not _him_). Then John told him he was fantastic, brilliant, amazing. John looked at him in awe and John didn't care that he was rude and difficult and the things he said were a bit not good. John saw him and understood and laughed _with_ him and Sherlock knew what it was like to have a friend for the first time in one hundred and thirty years.

He found himself showing off for John, going through the tedium of explaining his deductions merely to see John's eyes light up in admiration. The Work was still important, still paramount in his existence, but now, _now_ he had someone to do the Work _for_ and it was glorious.

* * *

The best way to think about the time between the pool and waking up, John decided, was in terms of being really drunk: most of his higher function off somewhere else, and his priorities reduced to drinking and shagging and obtaining said drinks and shags. And if he'd come home really plastered one night and had experimental kinky sex with his flatmate, he'd have wanted to eat his own fist the next morning then too and he'd be a bit pissed at said flatmate for taking advantage.

But that wasn't fair. Aside from chaining him up in the first place, Sherlock had done nothing that John hadn't asked for (_demanded,_ his conscience observed) and the circumstances had been so far outside the realm of normality that questions of informed consent and appropriate methodology for dealing with someone presenting with self-harming behaviour couldn't even be considered. Sherlock had done what he thought he'd had to, and by his own Sherlockian logic thought he'd been protecting John. John got that, he really did (the memory of threatening to castrate himself if Sherlock didn't fuck him was particularly painful to think about). He even had to admit that Sherlock might have been right, about some of it, at least —resisting the blood lust was sodding hard.

He was still annoyed that Sherlock hadn't confided in him, especially near the end when things were starting to feel a bit more normal between them. Maybe if he'd _known_—but perhaps Sherlock had been right about that, too. Would his demon have lashed out or tried to trick Sherlock if it had known it would be pushed back below the surface? Sometimes John wondered how many choices were ones _he_ made and how many were influenced by this _thing _inside his head.

He still wouldn't go back to Baker Street, though.

He couldn't trust himself around Sherlock. He couldn't trust his own reactions. He _really_ couldn't trust his own emotions. He had no idea how much of it had been his real feelings from Before (as he'd come to think of his pre-death life), and how much was vampiric biological response. He'd been like an addict, craving Sherlock and his blood, wanting every scrap that his sire would give him. He missed Sherlock, the Sherlock he'd known before all this, but what they'd had was over, lost. It couldn't be like it was, not if he was constantly gagging for Sherlock's touch, his blood, his attention. Not if it was something John didn't choose. Not if it was something Sherlock wouldn't have chosen either. John was fairly certain trying to hump his sire's leg wouldn't be well received.

He remembered Sherlock's face, turned away, twisted in disgust and revulsion, as he was coerced into performing a repugnant duty—a sacrifice for his dead friend.

_I will not let you hurt what's left of him._

_How could you even begin to understand what he meant to me?_

It made John want to weep. It only made it worse, this knowledge that John _had_ meant something to Sherlock—knowledge that John's demon had ruthlessly exploited and thrown back in Sherlock's face. Any chance of something _more_ developing between them naturally had been lost. John didn't know if, given a choice, Sherlock would have even wanted sex. He had no idea what feelings, if any, could have survived all this. Perhaps Sherlock felt he'd done all he had to, that he'd kept John safe and now he would delete the whole thing from his Mind Palace and move on, as if John had never existed. And that was something John couldn't bear.

So no, John couldn't go back.

* * *

Sherlock had started searching for a way to keep John with him long before the pool—a mere germ of an idea, brought on by a horrifying epiphany that one day, even if he wasn't killed beforehand, John would simply die of aging. Sherlock would be alone and John would not be there.

This of course, was unacceptable.

But his research was constantly interrupted—a case here, a mystery there, a new toxicology report to run—and he never got around to it properly.

And then Moriarty asked Sherlock to play.

If Sherlock had no time for humans, he had even less time for other vampires; their concerns and motives were even more obvious, nothing _interesting_, nothing complex. Moriarty was different. His mind was as sophisticated as Sherlock's, different but so very similar, and he liked making games as much as Sherlock liked playing them.

Moriarty's game was riveting and Sherlock was enthralled. Everything else was swept aside and forgotten.

When John, wrapped in Semtex, stepped out of the changing room, he realised too late that he'd run out of time.

* * *

John thought of his new physiology in terms of a medical condition: there were new dietary needs, new restrictions on his lifestyle. Loss of appetite. UV allergy. He couched the cravings in the familiar and manageable terms of addiction: the bags of plasma were the methadone dose and nicotine patch to his blood addiction.

Thankfully his time with Sherlock had given him a good idea of of what would kill him, of what he could and could not do. His reactions to stimuli were more pronounced than anything he'd witnessed regarding Sherlock; nearly a hundred and fifty years' difference would do that, he supposed. He had to take extra precautions—no confined spaces with other people (_humans,_ he reminded himself), no skipping meals, no more working as a doctor. He adjusted to this new life with its limitations, tested those limits, gave himself boundaries, employed the discipline of his time in the army. Unlike those first months after his return from Afghanistan, the risk and danger invigorated him in the same way that living with Sherlock had. Survival gave him a purpose that just existing hadn't.

He needed money of his own, money not deposited from an unknown source (Sherlock) directly into his bank account. He got a job as a security guard, doing solitary night work. His army training looked good on that resume.

His circadian rhythms adjusted to sleeping during the day, although English weather being what it was, he was often able to stroll about London at all hours, the miserable cloud cover blocking enough UV that he only felt a bit of a tingle.

Every now and then he moved hotels, although he suspected that if Sherlock wanted to find him, he would have done already. That he hadn't done so should have been a relief instead of leaving him feeling bleak.

The pull of his sire was ever-present. Every day he had to consciously make the decision not to return to the flat. Sometimes when he was on the Tube, if he didn't watch himself carefully, he found himself alighting on the Baker Street platform.

He really needed to make a new start. He needed to get away, just _stop_ and get his head clear.

Once his blood supplier was able to hook him up with someone reliable in another city, John left London. He didn't stay very long in any new place, only long enough to earn some money, long enough for his supplier to get him a contact somewhere else. He kept moving. Stagnant and stationary was a dangerous state to be in.

John knew he was running but he couldn't do anything else.

* * *

Sherlock hunted. Through streets and over rooftops, down alleyways and over chain-link fences. By cab and Underground and on foot.

This was his territory. He knew it intimately: every scent, every sight and sound in its rain-washed streets. London was his and he would find his prey.

It was James Moriarty, after all, who had taken John from him, and it was James Moriarty who would pay. No game, no puzzle could tempt Sherlock now. Now it was simply a matter of extermination as he unravelled Moriarty's web, drawing ever closer to the spider in the middle.

Moriarty had thought it would be amusing to play with Sherlock, to make him dance. He had thought the game was won if he took Sherlock's soul.

He would find out, soon enough, that he had been excruciatingly wrong.


	8. Afar

Thanks once again to my beta-extraordinaire Tsylvestris (who has a new fic 'Natural Order' it's omegaverse with a difference, you should read it).

**Warnings:** Het, suicide, violence, self-harming behaviour, character death

**Chapter 8: Afar**

Alone in a strange hotel room, nine cities and five and a half thousand kilometres away, John allowed himself to think about it: Sherlock rising over him, thrusting into him; Sherlock spooned around him, fingers in John's mouth, palm on his cock; Sherlock's tongue and hands learning John's body. Let himself wonder what had been forced and what had been given. What it would be like if it was just them, no chains, no blood, just two men and the cautious attraction that had been insistently burgeoning between them.

He realised with a start that he'd been stroking himself and snatched his hand away. He didn't want to be aroused by this. He shifted in frustration, felt the prickle of the demonic form close to the surface of his skin, felt his body vibrating with it.

The memory came, vivid and immediate: shaking in orgasm, Sherlock's voice, wrecked and rough by his ear: _John_.

John groaned and let the demon have its way.

* * *

The first member of Moriarty's network to fall was the man who'd aimed the sniper rifle at John and pulled the trigger. Sherlock used a garotting wire, killed him without compunction, and did not touch his filthy blood.

There were no more cases, no more Work. He'd given it all up for this one thing: the hunt.

Strand by strand he unspun Moriarty's web, pulling at the threads, seeking the spider in the middle.

Moriarty wheedled with him, trying to sway him with games and tricks: a blackmailing dominatrix, a stolen painting, a kidnapped banker, a plane full of the dead. Sherlock was resolute and would not dance to his tune. Not anymore, not now.

There was only one game left and it would not end until Moriarty was destroyed.

* * *

John did not speak to any others of his kind until his supplier in New York: Mary Morstan. His other suppliers had been human but he knew what she was instantly, with her blood dead and her heart still. She'd been born two years after he had, but had been turned in 1995 and looked all of twenty. She was funny and friendly and it shocked John how normal she seemed, just another lost soul. She wore a short tartan skirt, Doc Martens, and torn black stockings, and had dyed red hair with pale skin and scarlet lips. She reminded him of Shirley Manson, whom he'd thought was fit, back when he was going to music festivals.

He gave her his Three Continents Watson smile and found himself flirting with intent. Her eyes danced and she smiled knowingly.

John went with her back to her loft.

It was the first time he'd had sex since his soul had been restored. The first time as a vampire without being a chained, begging, wretched mess. The first time since Sherlock.

Mary was fun and the sex was fun too, with giggling, teasing, and plenty of foreplay, nothing intense or laden with regret and longing. For just a little while John was able to forget, to pretend he was just John Watson and he had somehow managed to pick up a bird nearly half his age with a lovely smile and gorgeous tits.

He sat up against the headboard while Mary rode him. He kissed her lovely mouth, cupped her breasts in his hands; Mary rolled her hips and bounced up and down in a way that made John's body-memory tell him he should be breathless.

It was fantastic, except he felt _it_, his vampire-self, lurking just below the surface and his enjoyment was tempered by his need to hold back, to keep it from rising.

It wasn't until Mary leaned forward and the lick of his earlobe turned into the sting of a bite that he let himself go, shuddering as the demon surfaced. He sank his fangs into Mary's lovely pink throat. She laughed merrily, an incongruous sound, and bit him back harder, and John came then and there.

Afterwards, with his face human again, he licked at her neck for a long time, unable to find the words to apologise or explain just why he was sorry.

Mary didn't seem to care, and played with his hair and kissed the sore spot on his earlobe until they both fell asleep.

She brought him warm blood when they woke in the late afternoon, microwaved in a novelty mug. John grinned and tapped his mug against hers. "Cheers," he said.

She sat cross-legged on the bed in her bra and knickers, with mug in hand as if it were a coffee and soon they'd go out for pancakes. The last rays of the afternoon sunlight crept in along the edges of the blinds, and John leaned his head back against the headboard. He smiled as he watched her. She really was delightful.

She switched faces as she drained her mug, eyes changing from brown to demon gold and back, as unselfconscious about this as she'd been about any other aspect of her body.

John looked away, clearing his throat, and quickly drank his blood, his own visage flickering for a moment.

"Huh," she said.

"What?"

"You don't like being a vampire."

He shrugged. "Don't really have a choice."

"Internalised sanguivoriphobia," she said knowingly.

John blinked. Oh. "I'm afraid of being a vampire?"

"You hate or are afraid of your vampiric nature."

He blinked. "Well. Not. I mean. We _are _vampires. I don't exactly love being undead."

She looked at him pityingly. "You really think it's...a curse, evil."

"You don't?" John raised his eyebrows.

"No! Of course not! Immortality, eternal youth? The ecstasy of becoming our true forms?"

"Mary...we _kill_ people. That's who we are."

"We don't _have_ to. Once we learn self-control we can live an ethical, non-harmful lifestyle. I was vegan before Becoming. It's quite possible to co-exist with humans peacefully. It's simply a matter of embracing your true form and marrying it with an ethical way of blood-taking."

Her words made him think of Sherlock, who'd chosen not to kill for the sake of the Work. Sherlock, who had done what Mary had been talking about, co-existing peacefully—helping humans, even though it was only a happy consequence of his need to solve puzzles. "So you've never killed anyone?"

She shrugged. "I did when I was new. I'm not proud of it."

John swallowed and wondered how he would feel if Sherlock had let him loose, or had brought him a living person to feed upon; if he'd killed while he'd been in that mindless state. He suddenly appreciated Sherlock's intentions a lot more.

"It wasn't your fault." He put his hand on her arm reassuringly.

"I know it's not my fault. Don't feel sorry for me, John. I'm reconciled with who I am, and although I wish I'd been better guided by my Sire, I accept the mistakes I've made. Don't you see? There is nothing 'wrong' with being a vampire. It's just another state of being."

He shook his head bemusedly. "I should just go with it, is what you're saying?"

"Yes, why live in fear of yourself? We are better, John, in this form; beyond the pain and suffering of humanity—transcending death."

"That's, wow—okay." John sipped his blood.

Sherlock had never revelled in his vampirism, had instead kept it hidden, although as time went on he grew more comfortable in showing this facet of his nature to John. He thought of Sherlock's words to describe himself: soulless demon, freak of nature, monster; thought of the way Sherlock had looked at _him_ in his demonic form, the revulsion and disgust. Maybe Mary had a point, maybe he needn't feel this way about himself. Maybe things would have gone better with Sherlock if he hadn't hated the very thing he'd turned John into: a reflection of himself.

How lonely Sherlock must have been.

John looked around the room, at the overflowing bookcases, the movie and political posters on the walls. It reminded him of being back at Uni and the time he got off with that Arts student, Sandra, and then had an argument about his plan to join the army.

His gaze landed on a poster, drawn cartoon style, of vampires and zombies. 'Undead yes—Unperson no,' it read. He shook his head and grinned. "Vampire rights?"

Her smile held a hint of fond condescension. "We have personhood too, John. We've been the victims of hysterical misinformation for a long time. The truth is, we are better than humans, we're suprahuman. Being higher on the food chain does not make us evil. Besides, many humans enjoy the adrenaline thrill of sharing blood with us."

"People do that? I mean— that's—" He could see that, he supposed. Just living with Sherlock, knowing what he _was _andcharging about all over London after criminals with him had been enough for John. True, he'd wondered at least once what it would be like to have Sherlock drink from him—but he'd repressed that thought along with the one about his mouth and Sherlock's cock.

"You've never heard of it? There are clubs in nearly every city. It's becoming a fairly popular scene among adrenaline junkies. Accidents sometimes happen, but they know what they're getting into. Of course, if someone accidentally OD's, the donor is turned into one of us. "

It made perfect, twisted sense. There would be a thrill in the danger, in getting that close to death, along with the intimacy of the moment. "It's consensual?"

"Of course. Most vampires prefer free-range rather than farmed."

"Farmed?" he asked carefully.

"Blood farms. The donors are well kept, fed and clean. They'd be living in poverty, selling their bodies or plasma for drugs or food in much less hygienic and safe conditions, otherwise. They're safer than the clubs; donations are strictly monitored. God knows it's far more humane than the brutality of hunting. They live long, healthy lives, free from hunger and disease and their addictions."

"These, um, people, in the farms, do they volunteer?"

She shook her head sadly. "We rescue them off the street, John. Usually they're not in any condition to give consent."

"And when they're off the drugs or alcohol or no longer starving? If they want to leave, what then? Can they go?"

"They wouldn't know how to function. Within a week they'd be back on the street again, and we can't risk the farms being discovered. It's kinder to keep them. Ideally, one day we'll live in harmony with humanity and there will be sufficient willing donors to meet our needs. In the interim, well...it's not perfect, but it's the most ethical option."

She went on, detailing the farms where human beings were kept like battery chickens, and John felt more and more nauseated.

Suddenly this existence, this super-human, transcendent-being doctrine Mary was spouting seemed a lot less shiny, a lot more unpalatable, and a fuck-load more complex than his little fantasy allowed.

He looked at his empty mug. "Is that where you got this blood from?" he interrupted.

"Of course. Where else?"

John swallowed. Where else? He'd just assumed that it was stolen from the human blood banks, which seemed the lesser of two evils. He'd never thought to ask. "Right."

He said goodbye to Mary, kissing her less regretfully than he'd thought he would do when he'd woken up a little while ago.

"Thank you. This was lovely, really lovely," he said, squeezing her hand, and he did mean it, but he wasn't about to see her again.

Mary smiled. "You've got my number," she said and kissed him goodbye.

Feeling like a hypocrite, he still took his little cooler full of blood bags. He needed to survive, after all, and it wasn't as if he could give the blood back to the humans it had been stolen from.

He thought about the blood farms as he took the subway back to the hotel where he was staying. He couldn't just ignore them, the nameless, faceless humans kept in cages and tapped for their blood.

As he stepped out onto the pavement into a New York night, he suddenly felt incredibly homesick. He wished Sherlock were here, to take Mary's words and work out in a moment where the farm was located. John stopped, surprised by the thought, but then—

He quickened his pace and found an internet cafe. He created a disposable email account and sent a message.

_If I give you the details can you help me with a case? John._

He browsed Sherlock's _Science of Deduction_ website while he waited for a response. It hadn't been updated in nearly a year. Sherlock would probably be awake, and either he'd answer or he wouldn't. He didn't know how Sherlock felt about him now, after so long. He might even have deleted him, but it was worth a try.

When he flipped back to the email tab, a new message was waiting, and he felt an unexpected tingle in the pit of his stomach as he opened it.

_Yes. SH_

He quickly tapped out the information he'd gleaned from Mary's conversation: the number of people being held, the shipping arrangements, the scale of operations. He neglected to mention the type of people who were being held, or why—he didn't know, exactly, how Sherlock would react to the concept of a blood farm, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. At best he'd probably not care, at worst he'd approve of the idea, although John was fairly sure the supplier at Bart's had always just pilfered from the blood bank.

Sherlock replied almost immediately. _Blood farm? I could give you something more exact if you told me your location. SH_

John laughed despite himself, impressed.

_Yes to blood farm, no to location. What should I be looking for? John_

Sherlock's reply came just as John was scanning through the forum archives, amused by Sherlock's trolling the trolls, cutting the anon haters down to size with scathing deductions. He froze as he read the email.

_New York, John? IP address, easily done. Even without that, simple process of elimination_—_blood farms have been banned in the UK, Mycroft has an agreement with the Watchers' Council_—_your time zone, city size for ease of concealment_—_obvious. Given your location, this is the most likely location of your blood farm:_

Sherlock had provided an address.

John exhaled and buried his face in his hands. He should have known Sherlock would find him.

A third email appeared in his inbox.

_Don't concern yourself, I won't try to find you. In future you may consider not using a computer with a web camera. Sherlock._

John looked up with a start and quickly turned the webcam around. He scribbled down the address Sherlock had given him, then deleted the email account and shut down the computer.

* * *

Sherlock sat back, staring at the screen where for a few brief minutes he'd been able to see John's wonderfully expressive face. Had been able to read and deduce a month's worth of data.

His hands were shaking.

He reread the emails, too brief, too few, the last advising him that his last message had not been delivered.

_John, be careful. Yours, Sherlock._

Mycroft had offered to provide him with information regarding John's movements, but Sherlock had refused it. He feared John's complete rejection if he sought him out, if he forced his presence upon him unwanted. If John wished to see him, he would find him. _If_ John forgave him—Sherlock's guilt sat heavily, stone-like, sick and unpleasant. He would not beg. He had done what he'd done and he had accepted the consequences. It was more than he could bear to face John again and see that contempt and accusation written in his expression. No. Perhaps he was a coward, but Sherlock would spare himself that.

But John had contacted him. John had needed him.

Hope, that treacherous and untrustworthy emotion, flared brief and bright in Sherlock's heart and he crushed it ruthlessly with the memory of his deductions.

John had appeared well, comfortable, at ease with himself, worried by the blood farm but not unduly so. Sherlock couldn't see his soul but he had seen the warmth in John's eyes and the small smile as he read through Sherlock's website (edifying thought). It had made Sherlock daring. He'd taken a risk.

Mistake. John had become distressed, concerned about Sherlock finding him.

But that hadn't been the worst of it, had it? Sherlock swallowed against the bile in his throat.

John had recently bedded someone, another vampire. Sherlock knew intimately how John looked ten to twelve hours post-coitus and the evidence lingered now: in his pupils, his skin tone, the healing bite on his ear. Vampire, female; John had found her attractive, had been satisfied by her, had enjoyed the act.

A low growl rumbled in Sherlock's throat and he dug the fingernails of one hand into his thigh—a distraction, a different pain to the ache in his chest and the nausea clutching at his belly.

He couldn't ignore the truth any longer: John was gone for good.

* * *

John stood across the street from a large warehouse at the address Sherlock had given him. Odd, that he trusted Sherlock about this, that he assumed this wasn't a trap of some sort. Maybe it was because he knew Sherlock could track him easily if he wanted to, knew that if he crooked his finger within two metres of him, John would be on his knees for him.

A human security guard walked around the building. When he'd gone past, John slipped across the street. He only needed to get within two metres of it to find out all he needed to know. The place reeked of blood and fear. His demon nudged against him, the scent tempting even as it sickened John, and he fled.

* * *

The more John thought about it, the more painfully apparent it became that running away from Sherlock was incredibly futile and that the longer he ran, the less certain he became about what, exactly, he was running from.

He trusted Sherlock, despite everything. He knew that now. He'd proven it to himself by turning to him, unquestioningly, for help.

Unlike with Mary, there was no conflict between Sherlock's way of life and John's morality. Sherlock was strangely uncomplicated, even if what was between them wasn't simple or easy—but then it had been always like that, even before John died.

Maybe it hadn't been so complicated after all. Maybe he'd just been a coward. Maybe he was just being a coward now.

* * *

The next evening, John caught a flight back to London. Before he left, he placed an anonymous call to the Department of Homeland Security with a tip about a human trafficking operation.

* * *

The office was large but sparsely furnished. The floor-to-ceiling-length windows were covered with thick drapes blocking out the mid-morning sun.

"You took your time," said Moriarty in his sing-song Irish brogue. "I've been waiting."

Sherlock shrugged as he shut the door behind him with a click. "I was busy." There was nothing left to lose, no reason to draw this out. He would finish Moriarty today even if he destroyed himself trying.

Moriarty swivelled in his plush leather chair, eyebrow quirked. "Slaughtering your way through my personnel file. Not very subtle, Sherlock. You could have just called; I've been trying to get your attention for _ages_."

Sherlock smiled and let his teeth show as he dropped the stake he carried up his sleeve into his hand. "You had your chance to talk, _Jim._ It's over now." The anger was pure and smooth, stretching silver through his veins. He could feel nothing else, no pain, no grief, no aching jealousy, just perfect righteous hate.

"You're so BORING!" Moriarty shoved his chair back in frustration and sprang to his feet, leaning over the desk, his face shifting briefly into its demonic form. "Look at you," he spat. "You don't even _care_ anymore. I broke your toy and now you don't want to play. Don't know why; broken toys are the very best kind of playthings. I have one. She's terribly _loyal. _Oops, but you don't, anymore, do you?"

Sherlock refused to respond. The waters of his emotions were calm now. He moved to the left, starting to circle around the desk.

"Bit disappointing, to be honest. I thought you were different," said Moriarty. "I thought I'd finally found someone _worthy_, but no, you don't live for the puzzles after all—Sherlock Holmes is no better than anyone else; all you want is _lurve_. Now you're just boring and predictable." He waved his fingers in the air in mock terror. "Ooh, vengeance."

"Yes," said Sherlock, and the pure, perfect anger flowed into that word.

Moriarty's confidence seemed to flicker for a moment. "Thought so. I let you find me, Sherlock. I had to see for myself if it was really true, that you'd given up." He smirked and continued in a lilting, taunting tone. "If you forfeit, I still win."

"Yes, you win. You've won your little game. Well done," sneered Sherlock, drawing closer. The anger suddenly solidified, sharp and crystalline, the water turning into ice. "But I will end you."

Moriarty's manic grin slipped a little and he took a step backwards away from Sherlock, around to the other corner of the desk. Sherlock grinned, the scent of fear thrilling, the anger now a blade, focused and sharp.

"Don't think so," sang Moriarty. "You didn't stop playing, you just changed the game. Now you want to play at vengeance, but I won't let you win that either."

Sherlock stepped towards him, Moriarty's words catching his attention despite himself.

Moriarty knew it and grinned. "It's all so very dull, don't you see? You were my last hope, and now you're just as tedious and predictable as the rest of them." His face shimmered again into the demonic. "THERE'S NO POINT!" He took another step backwards. His visage became human again and he smiled sadly as he shrugged with a parody of comedy. "I just wanted to say goodbye." Sherlock drew his hand back, ready to strike. Moriarty took another step. "And to see your face when—I. Win."

Just as Sherlock lunged with the stake, Moriarty grabbed it with one hand, pulling Sherlock closer as he yanked open the thick draped curtains with the other. For a frozen second Sherlock stood, locked with Moriarty, the stake tethering them as a shaft of light, bright and brutal, shot into the room and swept directly across Moriarty. His smile glittered, brittle and fixed for a moment, and then he flared, crimson and yellow and gold. Sherlock belatedly registered the pain as his own hand caught flame, and he dropped the burning stake and stumbled back even as Moriarty crumpled to ash.

_Please, God, let me live._

John's voice echoed in the halls of his Mind Palace and Sherlock dived behind the desk, flinching back from the burning rays. He smothered the flames on his hand and he knew in that instant, protected from the daylight only by his thick woollen coat and the semi-shade of the desk, that he wasn't willing to end his existence. Not yet, not here, because John would never know. John had asked for his help and John still existed and John had _smiled_ and Moriarty would _not_ be the last person on this earth Sherlock saw.

The room was flooded with daylight and there was an beam of sunlight directly across the path to the door. He pulled his coat up over his head and made a dash towards the door, his skin tingling and already starting to smoke in the bright mid-morning light.

He yanked the door open, fell through into blessed shadow, and slammed it shut behind him. He threw his coat on the floor and stamped out the patch that had started to smoulder by the right cuff. His hands steamed, the right charred and blistering with full thickness burns, and his cheeks and nose raw.

The hallway was deserted but he could hear alarms and shouts growing closer. Sucking in a breath, Sherlock ran.

Later, several painful hours later, he tended his wounds, wishing for the gentle touch of steady, capable doctor's hands. The burns would heal in time, but time was the one thing he didn't have. He had to strike while Moriarty's network was in chaos, to cut off the new head before it had time to rise and assert itself. Moriarty might have robbed him of his death at Sherlock's own hands, but he would not let Moriarty win. He would finish what he'd started, destroy Moriarty's legacy, and then he would live, because Moriarty was wrong: John was not broken, John was whole and magnificent and Sherlock had not lost his soul. It was here, inside him, and carried about the world by a short, sandy-haired soldier with sunlight for a smile.

* * *

End note: With apologies to Terry Pratchett and a thanks to UK Being Human for the blood farm inspiration.


	9. Returning

AN: Thanks as always to Tsylvestris for superb beta reading. xo Feedback and con crit much appreciated.

Warnings: violence

* * *

**Chapter 9: Returning**

Afterwards, when the tiles around the pool were stained red and Sherlock's blood was sluggishly making its way through John's body, John lay in Sherlock's arms, heavy yet so much smaller than he ought to have been.

The desperate panic of the proceeding moments had broken and Sherlock now was icily calm. In the ensuing silence—no heartbeat, no ragged, bubbling breaths—Sherlock fumbled in his pocket with blood-slick hands and retrieved his phone. He tapped a message to Mycroft, asking for the one thing he had sworn he never would:

_I need your help. SH_

Mycroft _had_ helped. Swiftly and efficiently and with a tactful restraint that would have made Sherlock burn with humiliation if it hadn't been so utterly essential. The upper bedroom at 221 was readied and John's body installed there to await his resurrection.

And then the seconds, minutes, hours, days bled into each other as John's body was taken possession of and Sherlock watched the newborn demon rage.

It had been grotesque, the repulsive distortion of John's beloved features and the twisting of his body as the new resident adjusted to its limits. Obscene non-words spewed from John's once-expressive mouth, contorted now in uncontainable rage.

Sherlock wasn't certain how long he spent sitting on the landing outside John's room, face pressed to the cool wooden door.

* * *

There were lights on upstairs in 221B. John watched the windows and every now and then he saw a shadow or a flicker of movement. He shouldn't even been here, standing in the shadows across the street, barely a week after his return to London, but he hadn't seen Sherlock in over a year and he was curious. Suddenly the door opened and an achingly familiar figure stepped out into the night to walk briskly up the street. The contained energy, the purpose and inherent grace in his movements caught John's eye as much as the familiar coat and scarf, the mad mop of unruly curls, and those cheekbones.

John watched him for a long moment and then decided to follow just as the tail of his long coat disappeared around the corner.

Sherlock moved quickly but John could too, and he managed to tail the tall detective to a boatshed in Clapton. He watched from a distance as Sherlock scaled the small building and took a perch on its sloping roof.

About half an hour later, a small, scruffy man came slouching along through the park, too far away for John to smell if he was human or not; no torch, so probably safe to say he was up to no good. He reached the boatshed and was in the process of making a hash of picking the lock when Sherlock jumped him.

John grinned as Sherlock pinned the man against the wall to interrogate him. God, he'd missed this. He ought to go, there was no need for him to be here, no point—he wasn't willing to speak to Sherlock, he'd just wanted to know if he was all right—but he couldn't bring himself to move.

Then behind him there was the small, sharp crack of a breaking twig and John froze. He could smell another human. He looked around and spotted the interloper, also without torch, circling around, heading towards the boatshed from the opposite direction.

He didn't need to know the details of the case to know there was a problem when an accomplice showed up, unnoticed, coming up behind Sherlock with a crossbow in his hands. He wished for his gun, abandoned in Birmingham before he'd flown out of the country so many months ago.

The man was John's first kill as a vampire and it was very satisfying, in the same way killing the cabbie had been satisfying: morally right, the act of a soldier in the defence of his comrade. This time, however, the sense of righteousness ran deeper: for that brief moment there had been no conflict as demon and human and soul aligned in purpose. John barely tasted the blood, but he drained the attacker all the same before he straightened, dropping the body on the damp grass and wiping his mouth. He shifted back to human form just as Sherlock slipped a stake from the sleeve of his Belstaff and stabbed it through the heart of the man he'd been questioning. Not a human after all, then.

When the ashes dispersed, Sherlock was looking straight at John.

John stared back, caught for a long moment, and then turned and slipped back through the trees the way he'd came.

* * *

Sherlock let the violin sing for him, let it pull at and unravel the thick tangle of raw emotion that wound beneath his skin and banded about his chest. He played until his body ached, his fingers, his shoulder, his arm, his neck.

He finally stopped, collapsing on the sofa, the disarray in his Mind Palace from the John-shaped whirlwind that had swept through put to rights, but not the same as it had been before. No. Now John had returned. Now he was again in every corner that Sherlock had previously purged and deleted and tried (failed) to scrub clean: the mug on the sink counter, the journal by the second (John's) chair, the sudden appearance of stairs leading upwards to what Sherlock knew would be _that_ room.

Sherlock stepped onto the landing in his Mind Palace, felt the coolness of the latch under his fingertips as he slid it free, and then turned the door handle.

He was by the boatshed in Clapton and John stood among the trees. Sherlock let his gaze sweep over every glorious inch of him, from sandy hair to plain, scuffed shoes, and finally allowed himself to deduce.

* * *

John wasn't even sure why he'd kept his phone. Probably just stupid sentimentality, but part of him wondered if the demon didn't have something to do with it. There were a few of these subtle life choices keeping him linked to his sire that he'd made without even thinking. Whatever the reason, nerves tingled in his stomach when he received the text a few days after his kill by the boatshed.

It was simply an address, and it was signed _SH_.

He questioned his sanity but he went all the same and arrived in time to block the escape of one of the suspects, whom he held pinned against the wall with fangs at his throat like the threat of a blade.

When Sherlock rounded the corner of the warehouse, John met his eyes and, shifting his face back to human form, raised his eyebrows questioningly. Sherlock approached carefully, hands raised as if John were an injured beast. John snorted and flipped the thug he'd cornered around to pull his wrists behind his back. "Got handcuffs?" he called. "He's all yours."

Sherlock blinked, a small crinkle at his brow. Their hands brushed as Sherlock's closed about the suspect's wrists. John, tingling, quickly stepped back, away from the flare of Sherlock's Belstaff, away from his particular scent, away from his piercing gaze.

He couldn't help inhaling, though, and he licked his lips as his gaze skittered away from Sherlock's.

"Thank you," said Sherlock quietly.

John nodded once and then left.

* * *

Not long after John had moved in, Sherlock found himself up late one night picking broken glass out of his right forearm with tweezers. It was a fiddly task, made all the more difficult because he couldn't use his dominant hand. Maybe it had been the sound of shattering glass, maybe it had been Sherlock's manful hisses of discomfort when each shard was removed, but suddenly John appeared at his side.

"Idiot," he said, voice rough from sleep. He took the tweezers from Sherlock's fingers and adjusted the lamp over his injured arm. Gently and carefully he set about removing the splinters, then cleaning and dressing the wound. Sherlock watched him the whole time: his calm composure, his steady hand, his focused attention. Watched the gentle throb of his pulse under his skin and, when he looked for it, the luminous glow of his soul.

It should have been clear to him at that moment the kind of trouble he was in, but it took at least another month before he began to have an inkling of how compromised he'd become.

* * *

John lay on the awful mattress in the little bedsit he'd found, his first semi-permanent residence in over a year, his veins still thrumming from his earlier encounter with Sherlock. He stared at his phone.

Sherlock had sent a text.

_I may need your assistance tomorrow. 9pm Kew Gardens. Come if convenient. SH_

It was strange, the way an in-joke could make his stomach flutter so. With no-one around to see, John didn't hide the idiotic grin that tugged at the corners of his mouth and he tapped out a response.

_If inconvenient, come anyway? _

His phone pinged almost immediately.

_Obviously. SH_

John huffed a laugh and rolled onto his stomach, bemused by the buzz of delight and gently stirring desire.

* * *

Sherlock twisted the man's arm back even further and pulled. There was a gratifying snap and a shrill scream.

"Tell me," growled Sherlock, the thing of nightmares, and tugged on the broken limb.

The man, nothing more than slime, unsavoury, sordid and beneath contempt (true, there were a wife and child waiting at home—even extortionists were lovable—but should have thought about that before selling his soul to Moriarty, shouldn't he?), squealed and pissed himself.

"M-moran-" he stuttered out. "It's Moran."

Sherlock smiled, all teeth, and slit the man's throat with a thin blade. He looked up, panting, as he let the body fall to the floor and met John's eyes. He squared his shoulders. This was who he was, John should know that. He could not be ashamed; John needed no further proof, after all, of what he was capable of doing.

John's visage shifted into the demonic. His teeth gleamed in the moonlight as he grinned viciously before his face slid back into human form—rumpled, deceptively amiable, a weapon at rest.

"Who's Moran?" he asked, regarding Sherlock steadily.

"Moriarty's second in command." Sherlock held his gaze.

"That's who we're going after?" John raised his eyebrows but his normally beautifully expressive face was carefully blank.

"Moran, yes; Moriarty's already dead."

"You killed him?" It was not an accusation. It was said in the same tone that John used when he said things like _brilliant, fantastic._

Sherlock kept his expression neutral. "Of course. He took you from me."

John's face betrayed nothing, but he was silent for a long moment, dark blue eyes fixed on Sherlock's face. "Sounds like a sodding good reason to me," he said.

* * *

Sherlock typed out the address and hit send. Smiling lightly, he followed it straightaway with another message. John would understand and would be amused.

_Could be dangerous. SH_

Amendment: John _would once have_ understood and been amused. Sherlock hoped he hadn't miscalculated. He had to wait exactly fifteen seconds before the reply came.

_Shut it. I'll be there. Idiot. John_

Sherlock smiled, more relieved than he cared to acknowledge.

_Good. SH_

He tapped out another message.

_I miss you. _

But then hit delete and put his phone away.

* * *

At one point during John's rebirth, Sherlock could not do it any longer, could not stand to see John's wonderful face malformed by the vampiric visage; could not bear to see John grasping and slobbering at his sire's wrist, undignified and uncontrolled in his blood lust; could not countenance the erection that jutted obscenely from John's body, the knowledge that if John knew he would be shamed by it making it a thousand times worse than its mocking temptation. He paced downstairs, lightning crackling through his Mind Palace until he could not pace anymore and he poured his despair out through his violin and tried in vain to drown out the sounds of torment upstairs that pricked at his sensitive hearing.

* * *

"Come back to Baker Street," Sherlock asked as he stood beside John in the London night, the corpse of a Dutch assassin at their feet. Sherlock had been magnificent and John had given as good as he'd got as well, but it had been the way they'd fought _together _that had left John stunned. They'd moved almost instinctively, predicting each other's moves, working in near-perfect unison. They'd never been like this before, never been so in sync, so in tune. It had left John feeling unimaginably disconcerted.

John looked anywhere but at Sherlock. "No," he said, and meant it.

Sherlock stared up at the stars silently.

John huffed out a breath. "I'm not ready. I can't. Not yet."

Sherlock glanced at him, his eyes dark and glittering. Then he nodded and, hands dug into the pockets of his long coat, he disappeared into the night.

* * *

John didn't hear from him for two days. It bothered him more than he wanted it to.

Finally he received a text with an address.

_Backup? SH_

He was already pulling on his coat as he tapped out a 'yes' in reply.

They destroyed the computer system of Reynholm Industries, one of Moriarty's subsidiary companies, and after they stopped running, two blocks away, they fell against the wall in an alley and burst into gasps of stupid laughter.

John rolled his head to the side and saw Sherlock looking at him, delight illuminating his face. He was beautiful and fucking brilliant and John's heart soared. He grinned back at him and for a moment it was just them, just him and Sherlock, and nothing had changed, and right then, exactly in this moment, he wanted.

Then he felt the prickling under his skin. He inhaled without thinking and Sherlock's scent radiated from his lungs into his entire body, leaving him thrumming with sharp, potent hunger. He looked away and bit his lip before the whine forming in his throat could escape. He pressed his fingers against the bricks behind him, focused on the rough sensation against the pads of his fingertips. Calm. Calm.

When he looked back, Sherlock was watching him, his expression closed, shuttered. "I won't apologise for the things I had to do to protect you," he said quietly. "But I am sorry it had to be that way. If I hurt you, I am sorry for that."

John swallowed. "You don't have to; it's fine." He pushed off the wall, scrubbed at his face. John Watson was no coward, and certain things ought to be said. "I remember pretty much all of it. I know why you did what you did—so. Yeah. I'm sorry, about that."

"Don't." Sherlock's mouth tensed into a tight line.

"I am. I'm sorry you had to go through that."

The smooth column of Sherlock's throat bobbed as he swallowed before answering. "You have nothing to apologise for," he said roughly.

John shook his head, throat tight. "I coerced you into having sex with me. I think I do."

"That wasn't you."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and squinted up at the inky sky. "Yeah it was. Just not high-functioning me." He frowned. "That part is still here. It hasn't gone anywhere." He glanced at Sherlock, feeling his ears heat at the admission. "That's some of the reason I can't come back. I don't know what's me and what's vampire biology."

Sherlock watched him, his expression inscrutable.

John ploughed on, not wanting to be misunderstood. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable and even if—I'm not sure if it's what I actually want either." He ran out of steam and leaned against the wall again.

When Sherlock spoke, his voice was tight and sharp. "If you remember everything, you'll recall that I hardly found it an imposition."

John sucked in a breath, entirely unable to look at Sherlock.

"In fact..." He heard Sherlock exhale. "I found the temptation shamefully hard to resist. You have to know that I wanted you. Want you."

John swallowed. Oh God. His tongue felt thick. They were talking about this— It was too soon. He didn't know. (He did, he did, but he didn't know how much—if he gave himself, the demon would give everything, he'd have no choice—) "Sherlock—" he began.

Sherlock sighed. "It's fine, John. Forget I said anything." He peeled off from the wall. "If you come back, there will be no expectations on my part." He strode away down the street.

John sagged against the wall as he watched him go.

* * *

He thought about Sherlock and their conversation all the way back to the bedsit. Sherlock still wanted him, had always wanted him. That knowledge alone was enough to make John weak at the knees. He thought again about being with Sherlock, the good and the bad. The violent sex, replete with despair and loathing, contrasted sharply with the tenderness Sherlock had shown, the intense intimacies. He heard again Sherlock's voice, choked and wrecked as he'd gasped John's name. It had been for him, the him from Before, the one Sherlock remembered. If Sherlock had offered, before the pool, John would have accepted. He would have done; he'd just been too afraid, too hung-up, too much of an idiot to make the move himself.

Suddenly he remembered Sherlock sitting on the edge of the bed, the line of his back tense. _The real John would never have wanted this._

That's what Sherlock had thought. He'd thought John hadn't wanted him before all this shit had happened. Didn't he realise? Surely he'd known—but then John recalled what he'd said to Sherlock, the hurtful, taunting words: _I know you think about it. I've seen the way you look at his body. Why else would you keep me chained here, naked? Why won't you touch me? He'd have let you. You want to. You're a coward. Yes...that's what it is, you're afraid. Why? Do you think he'll think you're some kind of freak?_

And then, again, with Sherlock inside him, face twisted with disgust and what John realised now must have been self-loathing: _You want this. You do. Finally you're allowed to touch him. And you can't get enough because you know, don't you, that if you hadn't done this to him you wouldn't have had this chance. Wouldn't have offered you his arse like this, gagging, greedy—_

That's what Sherlock believed to be the truth and John had done nothing to change that impression. John swallowed the bile that rose into his throat. Not good. Very not good.

* * *

Sherlock lay on the sofa, facing the cushions, his nose buried in John's old jumper. This..._wanting _was intolerable. In the past Sherlock had thought that maybe one day he might have John, if given the right conditions, the exactly right chain of events—those moments when they would lock eyes and he was sure John must see just how much Sherlock felt for him. Instead John had clutched at his heterosexuality, and Sherlock had never wanted to risk what he did have for something that was only a possibility.

He'd risked it tonight and John had been embarrassed, silenced, despite having all but confessed he felt that same sexual attraction.

Sex was normally something Sherlock did without: his body's desires and needs were fleeting, to be ignored if possible or assuaged with the bare minimum of effort, and John's continuing friendship and presence in his life was essential. Now, however, the _want_ didn't go away. It lingered and burned. It would be easier if Sherlock had been able to simply delete everything about that time between the pool and the restoration of John's soul, to forget that he'd ever known what it was like to touch John's body, to taste him, to be inside him.

His phone buzzed on the floor beside the sofa. Text message, John's message tone. Sherlock rolled over and snatched up the mobile.

_You're wrong. You said 'the real John would never have wanted this' but I would have, under different circumstances. I think we were getting there. And I hate more than anything that it was taken away from us. _

Sherlock felt a tremor deep within as he re-read the message.

The phone buzzed again before he'd decided how to respond.

_Is it something you'd have wanted too, under different circumstances?_

He wrote the reply without a second thought and sent it straightaway without even signing it.

_Yes. _

John took a little while to reply. _Okay then._

And Sherlock really didn't know what that meant.

* * *

John lay on his bed, unable to sleep. Thoughts of Sherlock, of wanting Sherlock, of Sherlock wanting him, circled through his mind.

The memory came to him, so clear and fully formed that it was like experiencing it again: _"I—I didn't mean—for this—"_ Sherlock had said, pressed along his back, mouth against his shoulder.

_"I want this," _he'd told Sherlock, and he'd meant it.

_"For now," _Sherlock had replied.

Sherlock's words, unclear at the time, suddenly made sense, and it punched him in the gut and pushed the air from his lungs. Sherlock had known how John would react once his soul was restored. Sherlock had known all along that John would leave him.

_Goodbye, John_.

His heart clenched. Sherlock had thought that was the last time he'd be with John. Sherlock had fucked John to stop him hurting himself even though he knew there'd be no coming back from that. Sherlock had wanted him, even then, and he could have kept him soulless and had him forever. Sherlock had known John would leave, and he had given him back his soul anyway.

Fuck, Sherlock was the reason John still existed. He'd bloody well brought John back from the dead, for fuck's sake.

Sherlock had turned him and kept him safe and then, even though he'd _known_ what John would do, he'd restored John's soul anyway.

He'd done it and John had left him, and Sherlock still wanted him.

It was enough to make him ache.

He wrapped an arm around his middle and rolled over the bed, reaching for his phone. There'd been no reply since his last text but what was there to say to that? He hesitated a moment, the enormity of Sherlock's sacrifice still overwhelming in his mind, before typing out a message.

_So let me get this straight, you brought me back from the dead, kept me from going on a murderous rampage or mutilating myself and then somehow managed to restore my soul?_

Sherlock's answer came a full minute thirty later.

_I did. SH_

John bit his lip as he tapped out his reply.

_Have I mentioned you're fucking brilliant?_

Sherlock's reply came more quickly this time.

_Is that a rhetorical question? I admit you have used that particular combination of adjectives in the past. SH_

John huffed a laugh.

_And I probably will again. I never thanked you. So here's me thanking you. Thank you._

His phone buzzed twice in quick succession soon afterwards.

_Idiot. SH_

_You're welcome. SH_

* * *

John didn't hear from Sherlock for a few days and even though he started composing half a dozen messages he didn't know what he wanted to say and sent none of them.

He tried to put Sherlock and the fraught, difficult feelings aside; he still didn't have a job and his savings were running low.

But then a text came. An address and a name: Moran.


	10. Symbiosis

AN: Thanks as always to my wonderful beta-reader Tsylvestris who asked the right questions and said to cut this chapter in half.

Warnings: violence, references to suicide, references to possible abuse, references to possible bdsm

* * *

**Chapter 10: Symbiosis**

In the dim light of the pool where Carl Powers had died, John saw his chance and took it.

He flung himself at Moriarty, wrapping his arms around his body, holding him fast. _"Sherlock! Run!"_

He was willing to die so Sherlock could escape, but Sherlock didn't run. Sherlock's face plainly said that he would not let John make that sacrifice, that he would die first.

He hadn't died first, of course.

* * *

There was a sniper's nest set up directly opposite 221B Baker Street. John and Sherlock waited in the shadows on opposite sides of the room until the inhabitant of the nest appeared, a brutish man with military regulation short hair, fatigues, and no heartbeat. A laughably brief scuffle ended with John's stake sliding between the other man's ribs. He turned towards Sherlock with a triumphant grin.

Sherlock dabbed gingerly at his grazed cheekbone where the sniper had gotten in a lucky punch. "That wasn't Moran."

John's grin faltered. "You sure?"

"Moran's not that stupid."

"Why, thank you." There was the faintest creak and John spun around as a young woman dropped lightly to the floor.

"Oh," said John. "Hello again."

* * *

John hadn't told Sherlock what had happened between the time he'd left their flat for Sarah's and when he'd stepped out of the changing room at the pool, because John had died before they could talk about it.

At some point between being kidnapped, roughed up, bundled into an explosives vest, and given orders through an earpiece, John had been tied to a chair in someplace cold and soundproof while a technician attached wires to him and other people shouted and pointed guns at his head. A soft-featured young woman with short sandy hair, khaki cargo trousers, and a black jumper had stood watch with a semi-automatic rifle slung over her shoulder.

The fact that none of them were bothering to conceal their faces concerned him.

He had nothing to lose, and the girl—apparently a junior officer in Moriarty's murder squad—seemed the best bet. "So, you enjoy your line of work?" he asked lightly, as if chatting to the hygienist while he waited at the dentist's.

Her gaze flickered towards him and away again. Her face was rounded and lightly tanned, with a smattering of freckles on her snubbed nose. She had the kind of features that meant she was probably older than she looked—John guessed early twenties. Her nails were bitten short and there was something fresh-faced and innocent about her. What the hell was she doing holding an assault rifle and helping to blow up buildings? Did she fancy herself some sort of activist, an anarchist? Her posture, her quiet air of authority, screamed military; mercenary, then? John of all people understood the allure of adventure that the army life offered. What kind of incentive did Moriarty offer that the British Army couldn't?

"Only I imagine the hours aren't that great. Good pay, is it?"

The young woman's gaze narrowed slightly but her stance never shifted.

"I'm John Watson, by the way. Just, you probably should know the name of the innocent person you're about to have killed."

"I know who you are, Watson," she said, her tone surprisingly hard and firm, belying her soft appearance.

"And that's the part where you give me your name," he prompted, and risked his best charming smile.

Her eyes grew flinty. "God, you're a mouthy one, aren't you? How about you have a nice big cup of shut-the-fuck-up?" She raised both eyebrows, waggled the end of her gun suggestively, and flashed her teeth in an ugly smirk that transformed her. A trickle of ice ran down John's spine as the softness was stripped back to reveal the steel underneath and, worse, the cracks.

Because John had seen that look before, on the faces of kids holding guns too big for them or draped in explosives: the face of fanaticism and unadulterated belief, indoctrination and loyalty borne of hatred and fear. This wasn't some uni kid who'd gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd, or an adventure-seeking young woman who'd found a better pay packet. This was the worst kind of cold-blooded killer: one who believed utterly in what she was doing.

She shifted slightly and John saw a mark on her neck just above her collar, purple, with two puncture marks. She noticed his gaze and raised her chin, exposing the mark pointedly, a challenge in her expression. He realised then what he hadn't registered before: the abrasion on her right wrist where the sleeve rode up, the thumb-shaped mark on her neck, just below her hairline.

"Right. Understood." He fell silent, disquieted and now very wary of the girl with the assault rifle. The technician reached around him, ignoring the conversation completely.

"Where did you serve?" John asked the young woman, breaking the silence.

She rolled her eyes. "I didn't; not Queen and country, anyway, Captain."

"Soldier of fortune, then, because you're army, you can't tell me otherwise. What are you, a Lieutenant? Captain?"

"Colonel."

"Fuck off." John smiled, polite and sharp.

The woman's smile glittered just as much and she shrugged, uncaring whether John believed her or not.

"You can't be more than twenty-five."

"Twenty-two."

"I rest my case."

The woman raised her eyebrows, lips curved into a smirk. "I'm very good at my job."

"And what's that?"

"You should know, Watson. It's the same thing you do for Holmes."

* * *

"Hello, Captain Watson, fancy seeing you here," said the young woman in the doorway. "Holmes turned you after all. How touching."

"You're Moran," said Sherlock, but her identity wasn't what was causing the panic to rise, his_ locus ceruleus_ to trigger the biological danger-response that was shooting urgent messages through his mid-brain. He knew what this woman was, knew it with the same sick certainty of a fox knowing there was a hound by its den.

"That's Colonel Moran to you. Why, were expecting someone with more Y chromosomes?"

Sherlock edged closer, willing John to stay away, to stay back. _Distract, deflect._ "You're a slayer."

Moran tilted her head. "I'm going to kill you and your pet, is what I am."

"Slayer?" John asked, and Sherlock risked a quick glance in his direction. He was on edge too, his body probably interpreting the danger even if his mind didn't yet comprehend it. It was the first time Sherlock's sire-self had seen his childe exposed to a natural threat and he was suddenly assailed by an overwhelming urge to protect and defend. Was this how Mycroft felt? Sherlock resolved to start returning his calls occasionally.

"Vampire slayer," he explained tersely, unable now to take his eyes off the woman, this threat. "Our equal in strength and physical ability. Human female, but possessed by a demon. There used to be only ever one at any given time, but then someone did something they oughtn't have done and young girls have been waking up preternaturally strong across the globe. I thought the Watchers Council had control of all the slayers in Britain?"

Moran stretched an ugly grin. "Jim found me first."

Ah. Her soul was mottled red and purple, colours of bruises, and he didn't need to see the marks on her throat and wrists to tell him what Moriarty had done to break her and make her loyal. It was not so different to what he'd done to John, and the similarity churned his stomach. "Moriarty's broken toy," he murmured. "Now you want vengeance."

Moran barked a laugh. "Jim didn't give a shit about anyone but himself. I wasn't a good enough reason for him to bother continuing to exist, so—" She shrugged. "He can rot in hell for all I care. You—you're just a nuisance. I've got every little leech that ever suckled on Jim's teat trying it on, and you're dusting anyone who's loyal to me. Enough's enough."

* * *

A slayer? John could smell fear, but it was coming from Sherlock, not Moran. The scent sickened him, made him wary and edgy, triggering his fight-or-flight response. He edged slowly towards Moran. Her scent was also wrong, not _quite_ human. She looked off, compared to the last time he'd seen her, her eyes now shadowed, her round face thinner, with a jagged edge that hadn't been there before: desperation. This was it; she had nothing to lose. For all that Moriarty might have done to her, she was not prepared or willing to be without him.

John's demon writhed agitatedly and the urge to run or fight grew more powerful. He steeled himself, tried to calm and focus. So far he hadn't seen any weapons aside from a stake looped through Moran's belt. They'd dealt with bigger, stronger, more seasoned adversaries before. What was so special about a slayer?

Smiling lightly, Moran took a step towards Sherlock. John's hackles rose and his face shifted without his say-so.

"You'd like to come to an arrangement?" Sherlock asked, his eyes never leaving her face.

She smirked. "No. I'd like to turn you to ash."

She moved before John had time to react. Stake suddenly in hand, she leapt at Sherlock. His face blurred into demonic form and he managed to block her strike narrowly, but his counterblow was knocked aside and the slayer drove her elbow into his gut. He sank to the ground and John's vision narrowed as everything went bright, sharp, and red.

John and his demon surged forward as one but Moran spun just as he reached her, planting a kick that threw him across the room. He thudded painfully against the wall.

He heard Sherlock snarl, and the fear and warning in the sound made his flesh crawl. They weren't in sync anymore, he couldn't read Sherlock in the confusion of the stench of the slayer and Sherlock's panic. There was no disunity with his demon, though; the parts of his mind were in concordance. He struggled to his feet just as Moran kicked Sherlock under the chin, knocking him backwards, his head hit the radiator with a sickening clunk as he fell and he lay terrifyingly still.

"Moran!" John barked, throwing every ounce of Captain Watson into his tone. She spun around to face him with a feral grin on her lips. "Bit sloppy, aren't you, _Colonel?" _he sneered, all the while willing Sherlock to _run, run_. "You call that hand-to-hand combat? No wonder Jim forgot about you."

Her eyes flashed. "Big talk, Watson. You think you can do better?"

"I know I can. Come and try me."

She ran her gaze over him speculatively. "You think Holmes really gives a shit about you? It's him that I want. If you leave now, I won't stop you."

He laughed, a short, sharp bark. "Nope. Not going to happen." He tilted his head mockingly, his empathy long since evaporated. "Did Moriarty even tell you he was planning on offing himself? Didn't even leave you a note, did he?" He was his demon, he could feel it throughout his whole body, in his tongue and at the forefront of his mind, felt it and embraced it. He would be cruel and he would hurt and he would _end_ this woman who threatened Sherlock.

Moran didn't even flinch. "One-time offer, go now and I'll spare you. I like you, Watson, and you're too stupid on your own to be a problem."

His smile was brittle. "Already said no."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself. I thought you'd have learned by now not to give up your life for him. He's exactly like Jim, the only thing he cares about are his little games."

With relief John saw Sherlock move behind her and carefully get to his feet. _Go go go go,_ he thought, and when Sherlock looked in his direction John's eyes flickered quickly towards the door, hoping he would get the message.

Moran's noticed the movement and he quickly renewed his attack.

"You're jealous," he declared. "Did you think you were in love with him?" He took a step backwards, drawing her away from Sherlock.

"Shut it." Moran stepped towards him. Touched a nerve, there. His demon crowed in triumph.

John's face twisted in mock sympathy. "Did you tell yourself it didn't matter that he didn't love you back? That he was a vampire and it just wasn't possible?" He retreated another step.

"I said shut it."

Behind her, John saw Sherlock steady himself on his feet.

"It must tear you up to see a vampire care about someone other than himself—"

"Shut up, now," she growled.

"I'll take that as a yes." He smirked and took another step away.

Moran hissed and vaulted forward onto her hands, spinning mid-air so her boot connected with John's jaw. His vision whitened and shocking pain flared as his head snapped back. He slid down the wall again to sprawl under the window.

Time slowed as Moran landed on her feet beside him, as she raised her stake, as he sucked in a pointless breath and tried to twist away.

Shaking off the pain, he saw Sherlock grab Moran from behind, forearm a vice about her throat. She slammed her head back against Sherlock's forehead with a cracking blow, and his grip loosened just enough for Moran to spin around, stake in hand.

John, his demon, and his body acted in unison. In one swift movement he'd flipped up the gun from the sniper's nest and had it pointed at Moran. Even as Sherlock stopped her blow but had his legs swept out from under him; even as she landed on Sherlock's midsection, hand at his throat, stake raised for the killing blow; John grew clear, calm, and focused with a singular purpose. He took aim and fired without a qualm, and Moran pitched forward, the tainted scent of her blood filling the air as gore sprayed across the room.

* * *

John rolled her body to the side and gripped Sherlock's hand, hauling him to his feet.

"All right?" he asked, scanning him for damage. He was covered with blood but most of it was Moran's. There was still the cut on his cheekbone from Moran's underling, and he'd have a few bruises later but he was surprisingly unscathed. John checked him for signs of concussion but he seemed fine. His more resilient vampiric face had protected him when Moran had head-butted him and had let him shake off his earlier head injury.

Sherlock swallowed and nodded, staring at John. "I—yes. And you? Are you all right?"

John nodded and realized he was still in demonic form. He exhaled and shifted his face, the change stiffer and less fluid than usual. "Yeah, I'm good." He cracked his jaw, wincing with the twinge of pain, but he was a vampire now and what once would have left him with a dislocated jaw, drinking all his meals through a straw, barely dented him. John shook his head with dry humour, not that much different now actually, with his new liquid diet.

He glanced up and saw Sherlock still regarding him. "That—that thing you did. That was good."

John exhaled a shaky laugh. "Yeah, um, you too. You were supposed to run, you git."

Sherlock's gaze burned into him. "You should know me better than that," he said, his deep voice quiet.

John breathed out. "Yeah, I do. All the same, I'd hoped." He bit his lip and looked down at Moran again. Blood stained her denim shirt. The scent was unappealing and slightly toxic in its undertones, but the threat was gone, Sherlock was safe. John's demon, spent and retreated, didn't even twitch. Crumpled on the floor, Moran looked like an ordinary young woman now; just a person whose life had been taken over by someone bigger and bolder than she. Not so different to John, not at all.

Yet Moran had been wrong. Sherlock was so different to Moriarty. John had no doubt in his mind that Sherlock cared and would sacrifice everything for him, just as much as John would in return.

Sherlock pulled out his phone and tapped out a message. "Watchers' Council will probably collect her," he said, and tucked the phone back into his pocket.

Moran was dead. Moriarty's network was destroyed. It was over.

John felt oddly deflated. "What now?"

Sherlock's pale eyes flickered towards him. "I was hoping you might tell me."

He studied the pool of Moran's blood spreading across the polished floor. Through the window, he could see 221B on the opposite side of the street: home. Beside him, Sherlock stood, still and silent. Waiting.

John lifted his chin.

"All right," he said. "I'll come back."

* * *

Author's note:

Oh and I meant to add:  
A little meta on Moran - I'd flirted briefly with the idea of Moran being a slayer in an earlier draft but then scrapped it when I remembered slayers have to be female. So then I tossed around the idea of Moran or Moriarty having a pet rogue Slayer. Discussing with the lovely Sylve, she asked: "Could Moran be the rogue slayer?" I was about to reply that I'd thought of that but slayers have to be female - and then I smacked myself in the head as I realised, why can't Moran be a girl? So here she is, Steph Moran, Vampire Slayer and I'm kind of enamoured of her and might have to write some MorMor dub con angst sometime soon.


	11. Home

Thanks to the wonderful Tsylvestris for getting to this so quickly and for being all round marvellous xo. All mistakes of course are my own (because I fiddle).

Warnings for this chapter: sex, blood play

* * *

**Chapter 11: Home**

Mycroft came to see the new fledgling eight days after the change. Sherlock escorted him to the upstairs bedroom. The new vampire wearing John's body stared at them, curious and unblinking. It unnerved Sherlock.

"You should simply put him out of his misery, Sherlock," Mycroft said as they returned downstairs. "Do you intend to keep him chained like that forever? You would be doing him a favour, letting him go. That soul of his with which you were so enamoured is long gone."

"He's my responsibility, Mycroft," he said, and couldn't keep the anger from his tone, revealing too much to his sire.

"Sentiment? Really? I think sometimes you forget you're supposed to be evil."

"I intend to restore his soul," he snapped.

Mycroft glanced sidelong at him. "A Herculean labour; surely a waste of your valuable time?"

Sherlock stopped. "John is worth every second of my time."

Mycroft regarded him steadily for a long moment, then adjusted his cuffs and shifted his grip on his umbrella. "So I see. In that case, you have my deepest sympathy. Good day, Sherlock."

* * *

John and Sherlock crossed the street to 221 and went upstairs to their flat. Sherlock, covered in Moran's blood, disappeared into the bathroom, leaving John standing in the middle of the living room. He looked around the cluttered, comfortable mess with an ache of nostalgia and familiarity; nothing had changed. His old things were still all at Baker Street and he'd already decided to leave collecting the rest of his belongings from his bedsit until the next evening.

Slowly he went upstairs to his old room. He stopped in the doorway, overcome by a wave of something akin to claustrophobia. He swallowed the panic. The soundproofing had been removed from the walls and there was a new bed and the chains were gone but he didn't know if he could stay in this room again.

Then he saw the framed periodic table on the wall and realised that it wasn't a new bed after all, it was Sherlock's. He went back downstairs.

Sherlock had finished in the shower and was dressed in his pyjamas, blue silk robe swirling as he flung himself into his armchair and retrieved his laptop in one graceful movement.

"You switched rooms," John said.

Sherlock looked up from his laptop. "Yes. We can swap back, if you prefer. I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that you would prefer not to spend any more time in there."

John turned away, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Yeah—yes, it's fine. Thanks."

He went into what he still thought of as Sherlock's room and found a new bed, neatly made up with fresh sheets, and all the belongings that he'd left a year ago safely stored in the wardrobe.

He sat on the bed for a while.

Eventually he went to the kitchen and made some tea, then realised, firstly, that he wasn't going to drink it and, secondly, that Sherlock had stocked up on tea-making ingredients just in case. He fished a blood pouch out of the fridge and microwaved it instead.

"I'm making...a drink," he called out. "Want some?"

"Black mug, 45 seconds."

The microwave pinged and John switched mugs out. He sipped his blood and took Sherlock's lukewarm fare to him. Sherlock took the mug without glancing up. "Thank you," he murmured.

John hummed in response and took a seat on the armchair opposite: _his_ armchair. It was so familiar, so much like Before that he swallowed around a lump in his throat and studied the blood in his mug for a bit, just until it eased. He drained his mug and let his face slide back into human form, less stiff now.

When he looked up, he saw Sherlock watching him, face also human, before quickly returning to his laptop screen.

"Mycroft must be pleased we're finished," John said. "Not having to clean up after us now."

Sherlock frowned absently. "Hmm, he hasn't called, so I'll take it as a good sign."

After a little while John got up, retrieved his own laptop from the desk, and returned to his chair. On his neglected blog were a string of comments asking what had happened to him, from people he hadn't even known read his blog. He'd kept in contact via email with Harry but no-one else. He hadn't known what to say. The day after the pool Sarah had left an angry voicemail message that John hadn't discovered until nearly a week after he'd been released by Sherlock. He hadn't contacted her, and given his circumstances it had seemed to be for the best. His other friendships had gone the same way.

He hadn't realised how lonely he'd been, the gaping absence only obvious once it had been filled again.

Watching Sherlock, folded in his chair, all angles and corners, a frown on his brow and a dear, familiar crinkle on the bridge of his nose, his heart swelled and he had to fight back a fond grin. Sherlock really was odd-looking: that stupid chin, those ridiculous cheekbones, those _eyes_, that too-big mouth; he looked like a bloody _alien,_ for fuck's sake, but somehow the whole sodding thing worked and at some now-forgotten point John had looked at him and realised he was one of the most attractive people he'd ever met. Now, knowing what Sherlock looked like in the throes of orgasm (eyes glazed, wet lips parted, cheeks flushed), John didn't have a chance. He breathed in, aware of the scent of his sire, a good scent that spoke of safety and home. He didn't feel the need to submit. He didn't feel unbearable want. He felt the joy of promise and potential. He allowed himself to feel the awakening arousal, the flutter in the pit of his stomach, the tingling in his palms and a sudden tightness in his jeans. He let his demon wake and roll over under his skin. Aroused but contented, it hummed lightly below the surface, purring.

* * *

John's very presence altered the room and shaped the landscape of Baker Street. Suddenly, empty spaces were merely temporarily vacant, abandoned objects simply not currently in use, silence was full of potential, no longer stretching loneliness.

John was back. John was here.

He risked another glance and found John watching him, eyes full of—Sherlock dared not try to deduce. He had become an unreliable witness, biased towards the outcome.

He could smell John, the scent triggering thoughts of companionship and warmth with flashes of heat and sweat.

Once those moments of attraction had been easy to read in John: fluttering pulse, dilated pupils in dark blue eyes, rising pheromones, increased body temperature. A temptation even then, but without enough data (emotions, rationale, psychology—tedious and inexact), Sherlock had never risked acting on the tantalising reactions.

Now nothing was clear, but John was here. John was with him.

* * *

Sherlock must have sensed John watching because his eyes flickered up for a moment before returning to his computer screen. He set his laptop down and fidgeted for a minute or two before springing to his feet and pacing to look out the window, hands clasped behind his back. John admired the long line of his spine, the sweep of his shoulders, his unfailing grace.

"Come to bed?" John asked, lightly.

Sherlock turned, his expression a wonder. He stared for a long moment, intense gaze darting across John's features. "Yes," he said, voice deep and rough.

He followed John to his new bedroom. John shut the door behind them and toed off his shoes, then pulled his jumper over his head and discarded it. He found Sherlock watching him, unnaturally still. John grabbed the cuff of his robe and tugged lightly as he stepped into his personal space and reached for a kiss.

_Oh,_ John thought as his lips brushed against Sherlock's soft, full ones. _We haven't actually done this before._ He could feel Sherlock tremble under his fingers, tense and taut as a violin string. His tongue darted out to taste and Sherlock's mouth parted on a breath. They stood, lips lingering slowly, carefully. John reached up, pressed his hand against the side of Sherlock's neck, slid it up into his hair.

Sherlock made a small, soft sound and slowly drew back.

John licked his own still-tingling lips. Sherlock's eyes were dark and wide, a flush across his cheekbones, lips parted. He looked as if he were drowning.

"John—" he said helplessly.

John pushed the dressing gown from Sherlock's shoulders, let it slip down and pool at his feet. Sherlock stood as if he'd lost the use of his limbs, his body radiating tension, fingers hovering at John's hips as if he didn't dare touch him. John reached for the edge of his faded t-shirt and let his fingers slip under to soft skin.

Sherlock gave a low cry and crushed their mouths together. One large hand lay flush against the side of John's face, the other clung to him in fierce desperation.

He met Sherlock head-on and clutched at him, drawing him closer, deepening the kiss. He'd wanted this for so long—his body, his demon, _him_, all of him, in complete unity. He couldn't get enough of Sherlock's mouth, of the soft glide of his tongue against his own, tasting, taking, moving against each other with fervent need. He breathed in Sherlock's scent, as delicious as he remembered, and it mingled with tactile pleasure to fuel his arousal.

Suddenly Sherlock drew back, pale blue eyes seeking John's. "Do—do you want to chain me?" he asked in a ragged voice.

John froze, his stomach and libido plunging. "No...is that—is that what you think this is?" He searched Sherlock's face. "This—this is us, you and me, starting from scratch. You don't have to make _amends_." He exhaled. "My being here is _not_ contingent on this, it's really not. So, just sex, if you want to, just us, like we should've done before I died."

Sherlock's chin quivered just a bit and his mouth tightened before he pulled John to him again, pressing his forehead and nose bruisingly against John's face, his hand firm on the nape of his neck.

"_John_—_"_ he groaned. "I want to. How can you even ask that?"

John exhaled. "Good, that's…good," he said, and sought Sherlock's mouth again. They moved against each other, closer now, John's hands roaming freely, exploring and holding all at once.

Sherlock seemed hesitant to lead and so it was John who pushed Sherlock's t-shirt up and over his head, and John who started on his own shirt buttons until Sherlock's long fingers joined in, and John who tumbled them both onto the bed.

Sherlock was as beautifully formed as John remembered. He was marble-pale, but after a year without sun, so too was John, the tan he'd brought home with him from Afghanistan long gone. Stretched out beside Sherlock and lost in the touch of his lips, John ran palm and fingertips over Sherlock's naked torso, skirting the purpling bruises Moran had left, touching where he'd only gazed before: the places where Sherlock was silky soft, the places where he was smooth, the places where the tickle of hair or the bump of a puckered nipple met his questing fingertips. His sire's heady scent tugged at his core and the soft, needy sounds Sherlock made against his mouth were—_oh God_—incredibly erotic. John moved restlessly, groin and thigh seeking contact; his hand, aching with want, splayed open over Sherlock's bare back and slid downwards. He found the edge of Sherlock's pyjama trousers again and pushed them out of the way as his palm glided over the smooth curve of Sherlock's arse.

Sherlock, tenderly cupping John's face and stroking the hair just above the nape of his neck, groaned shudderingly and canted his hips forward. He drew his lips away the barest millimetre. "John, I want you inside me."

John's desire flared white-hot. "Yeah, all right," he said.

* * *

Sherlock let John rise over him, let him rid him of the last of his clothing. He lay back and watched as John undid his own jeans and pushed down the interfering fabric: John's body willingly exposed to him. He was paler but just as magnificent as Sherlock remembered, from the scar on his shoulder, to the light trail of hair on his belly, to his perfect, swelling erection. Sherlock parted his thighs and waited as John retrieved the lubrication from the bathroom.

John stopped at the edge of the bed and for a horrific moment Sherlock thought he might have had a change of heart, but John's dark eyes raking his body, the scent of his arousal, and his erection, unashamed and proud, told him otherwise.

John settled between his knees and smoothed his hands along Sherlock's calves, across his thighs, under his buttocks. "Beautiful," he murmured, meeting his eyes then kissing his knee. "All right?"

Sherlock could do nothing but nod, fearing if he spoke or moved he might lose control over his own actions. His muscles coiled with anticipation, there was a peculiar fluttering sensation in his stomach, and his penis was embarrassingly eager. He held himself restrained and quiescent, disconcertingly aware of every point of his body that was touching John's, eyes locked on John's deep, fathomless blue. His thigh muscles trembled.

John sucked in a breath and then leaned forward and took his mouth.

John.

John was touching him.

John was kissing him.

John was tasting him.

John was everywhere and in not enough places all at once.

Sherlock quivered under fingertips alternately soft and bruising. He opened beneath John, gave him everything he asked for, spread himself, pliant and willing, drank in every detail and wanted moremoremoremore—

The short, coarse hair at John's groin rubbed against the sensitive curve of his buttocks and pressed against his testicles. John's hips, lower back, and lightly furred bottom were luxuriously soft under his calves as he wrapped his legs tighter and tugged John closer. John was above him and inside him. John was stretching him open and John was making golden sparks burn behind his eyelids. John's scent was intoxicating and John's hands were on his body, stroking him and caressing him. There was so much pleasure and only a little bit of pain and he wanted both—he wanted John gently and he wanted him roughly. He wanted John in every way that he'd had John before and he wanted—_oh_ John's mouth, _oh_ on his, gently tugging at his bottom lip, his tongue brushing against his—and then John was inside him this way too, tongue_ and_ cock, and Sherlock felt strung in between.

_John._

He'd wanted, wanted, and now he had, and he was John's to take and do with as he pleased because John was wonderful and magnificent, and always his, and always would be, and he loved him.

He hadn't said that, he needed to say that. He drew his mouth away from John's claiming kiss. "I love you," he said. "John, I love you."

John whimpered, stopping on a thrust, deep inside, and he kissed Sherlock's face and smoothed his hair and kissed his cheeks. "Sherlock," he gasped and kissed his mouth again and again. "God, yes, I love you too."

A sound shockingly like a sob escaped Sherlock's lips.

* * *

Sherlock was all about him, his scent, his touch. John drowned in him, in the pleasure of him. He rocked against Sherlock, buried inside his body, wrapped in his long limbs, touching with every inch possible. _Sherlock loved him_. Sherlock made a sound like something broken and John felt like he might be broken a little too.

He took Sherlock's hand from his shoulder and sucked two fingers into his mouth, pressed his own fingers between Sherlock's lips. John was inside his arse, inside his mouth, covering his body; Sherlock was his, entirely. Meeting Sherlock's eyes, he sucked on the two fingers, felt the gentle, wet pull on his own curled inside Sherlock's mouth. His face glimmered and he pricked Sherlock's fingers lightly with his fangs just as Sherlock's face changed and John's own fingers stung sharply. The sweet, coppery taste of his sire's blood spread across his tongue, and the heady scent of their blood mingled with the thick, heated scent of their coupling.

They moved together, giving and taking, pleasure building and coiling tighter and tighter in John's groin and thighs with each suck on Sherlock's fingers and each wet pull on his own, with each clench about his cock and each slide into slick tightness. He was close, and Sherlock was shaking under him and arching into him and whimpering moans in short staccato bursts, increasing in tempo, until with a desperate cry his blunt human teeth clamped down on John's fingers and his body clenched rhythmically about John's cock, warm wetness spurting between them. With a gasp, John jerked into Sherlock, arching backwards—

_"Oh God, Sherlock_—_"_

—and he was coming too, wave after wave of his orgasm rushing through his body, pulsing into Sherlock's.

Slowly the world came back. John pulled out carefully, drew his fingers from Sherlock's mouth, and flopped beside him on the bed.

"I love you," he said, while the endorphins and dopamine were still flooding his system, before it became too hard to repeat.

"John," whispered Sherlock, and covered John's hand with his own.

He fell asleep to the gentle sensation of Sherlock's fingers trailing along his spine, lips pressed to Sherlock's shoulder.

* * *

John woke the next evening to the pleasure of finding himself wrapped in another's arms and enveloped in the scent of his sire. _Sherlock_. He shifted slightly and Sherlock stirred. He felt the sleepy graze of lips against his shoulder.

John hummed contentedly and rolled over to face him. His swelling prick brushed against Sherlock's equally thickening cock and the unfamiliar but arousing contact made John pause. He lifted the sheets and peeked down between them, rocking his hips lightly as he nudged his erection against Sherlock's.

"_John," _rumbled Sherlock.

"Mm, evening," he replied. He watched as Sherlock's hips undulated and met John's thrusts with his own, sliding their cocks against each other temptingly.

He dropped the sheet, lifting his face to meet Sherlock in a kiss. Warm, sleepy stirring quickened into lust as Sherlock pressed closer and their kiss deepened. He slid his knee between Sherlock's, heavy bollocks resting tantalisingly against his thigh, and Sherlock groaned into his mouth. John's demon rose hungrily at Sherlock's potent scent, and the same urgent need for his sire's blood and touch that had tormented him in the upstairs bedroom a year ago assailed him. He pulled back, suddenly cold with fear.

He cleared his throat. "No," he tested, pushing lightly against Sherlock's chest, and felt a surge of relief. He was still in control, he was choosing this.

Sherlock blinked and frowned. "No? What—"

John shook his head, feeling suddenly buoyant. "Never mind, just checking something. I need to eat. Don't move; I'll be right back." He plopped a quick kiss on Sherlock's pout and slipped from the bed.

When he came back with two mugs of warmed blood, Sherlock was busy tapping on his phone. He put it away as John handed him his mug. The sight of Sherlock, naked and waiting in his bed, filled John with a surprising amount of pleasure.

"Anything interesting?" he asked as he climbed back into bed beside him.

"I just let Lestrade know I was available again." Sherlock changed his face and took a large sip.

John nodded and let his own demon rise before gulping the warm blood. He felt more comfortable with his transformation, but even so, when he glanced up and saw Sherlock watching him, features now human and carefully blank, he couldn't help but feel self-conscious. Sherlock sucked his top lip under his bottom one thoughtfully and then reached forward and ran his forefinger gently over the ridge of John's brow. John resisted the urge to shift back into human form: the demon was also who he was, and all Sherlock's previous disgust and revulsion suddenly weighed heavily upon him.

Silence fell as Sherlock, staring intently at him, stroked his fingers over his flattened, bat-like nose and his pronounced cheekbones, then ran his thumb across the flat of John's extended teeth. He withdrew his hand and his gaze flicked between John's golden eyes and stretched mouth before he leaned in, still in human form, and kissed him.

If John's heart could have pounded, it would have. He stayed very still, aware of the sharpness of his teeth and the tender softness of Sherlock's lips, but then he felt Sherlock's face shift. He looked into golden-green eyes as Sherlock drew back.

"John," he said in a hushed tone.

John gently cupped his face, rubbing his thumb against the edge of Sherlock's brow. Golden eyes fluttered shut and John closed the distance between them, pressing their mouths together in a carefully chaste kiss. He tasted copper, smelt the sweet enticing scent of his sire's blood, and realised he'd managed to nick Sherlock's plump bottom lip even so. Sherlock shivered and gave a small groan as John sucked his bleeding lip into his mouth and released it with a pop. Eyes flickering open, he nipped John's bottom lip in return and laved it with his tongue in one long, wet swipe. John groaned and went to put his mug of blood on the bedside table but Sherlock stayed his hand. He drew back and dipped his forefinger in the liquid and, holding John's gaze, sucked it clean. He repeated the gesture but this time slid his finger between John's lips. John sucked his finger clean and then dipped his own fingers into the blood to paint a smear from Sherlock's collarbone to his sternum. Watching Sherlock carefully, he leaned forward, followed the red streak with his tongue, and felt Sherlock shiver under his touch. He drew back.

"_John, more,"_ breathed Sherlock in wonder.

John dipped his fingers into the mug again, and this time he painted Sherlock, decorating him with bloody whorls in a profane type of finger-painting. He sat back and admired his handiwork before adding a touch more —stupidly romantic but he didn't care: his initials, over Sherlock's left breast. This time he did put the mug down, and he pushed Sherlock back onto the bed before he set to licking him clean.

It seemed only sensible to continue downwards, changing his face back into human form before he bent his mouth to Sherlock, hard, flushed red and twitching with want.

Afterwards, Sherlock pressed him down onto his stomach and drew symbols and patterns on his back and buttocks and tongued him until he was open and rutting the sheets with need. He entered him and it was familiar and almost too much like before, when he'd been chained and begging, but this time Sherlock kissed his body over and over as he murmured against his skin: _John, my John, I love you, you're mine, forgive me, my John, I'm yours, always, don't leave me again—_

When John came, it was with Sherlock gasping wetly against his shoulder, his finger bloody in John's mouth.

* * *

The night after John had discovered Sherlock was a vampire, Sherlock stood on the threshold of John's bedroom and watched him sleep. He knew that was probably in the realm of a bit not good, but he hadn't been able to forget John's look of wonder nor his exclamation:

"_Amazing."_

Sherlock watched his deceptively ordinary flatmate snuffle in his sleep and wondered for the first time if perhaps he'd underestimated him.


	12. Epilogue

Thank you to Tsylvestris for wonderful beta reading and support with this baby. Thanks everyone for your feedback, favourites, kudos and following along, you all rock.

* * *

**Epilogue**

Sherlock came back to awareness with a gasp, his mind in chaos, still enfolded in a lingering sense of an all-encompassing (suffocating) peace. He shook with vertigo as two conflicting planes of memory fought for dominance in his consciousness: simultaneously he was in the upper room of Mycroft's townhouse and here now, over a century later, in the Baker Street flat—the architecture of his Mind Palace at once bewilderingly disarrayed and entirely familiar.

The great span of time stretched and then collapsed as the two memories aligned and snapped into their respective places. The resulting silence of his mind was deafening.

Sherlock Holmes, the only consulting detective in the world, opened his eyes. He was in Baker Street and he was alive. Mycroft had turned him long ago and now Sherlock had arranged the restoration of his own soul.

His past now stretched behind him, dreamlike, and he was left with the disconcerting sensation that his old self had awoken in the future to find he had somehow achieved all he'd ever wished for: he was a detective, autonomous and independent, and there was John. _John. _John, who'd accepted him and shown him that what and who Sherlock was could be beautiful, when until then he'd always been _wrong_, when vampirism had been just one more way he didn't _fit_.

The memory of Victor, once so sharp and raw, now only twinged; the years of resolute misanthropy and self-imposed loneliness (he couldn't help who he was, it had its uses, easier not to try) now palimpsest. The cloying stillness he'd woken with still lingered and the stifling sense of unending tedium sent a shudder down his spine.

He sucked in a breath instinctively, relief surging through him. It had worked.

Oh, God. He was alive. Thank God.

* * *

John dropped his luggage in the kitchen and tossed his wallet and keys on the table. The conference had been interesting and it was great to be finally working in medicine again, even if only in a post-mortem capacity, but five days was a long time to be away.

"Sherlock?" he called and made his way through the flat. He found his partner, lover, significant other, mad bastard and sire sitting in his armchair, waiting for him. His fond greeting died on his lips at Sherlock's expression. He knew that expression. It was the 'I've done something perhaps John won't like and I'm wondering if he'll find out' face, last seen when Sherlock 'borrowed' Molly's cat for a week and kept it in the upstairs bedroom. "All right, what have you done?"

He raised an elegant eyebrow. "Done?"

"Yes, done—out with it."

Sherlock looked positively shifty. "I think you should kiss me first. I've missed you."

His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "I'm really worried now." But he leaned over and planted a lingering kiss on that pouty mouth. Ah. He felt himself falling into distraction and quickly drew back. "Sherlock," he said firmly. "What is it?"

"It's nothing. I wasn't even going to bother telling you."

"Sherlock…"

"Oh, fine! I had my soul restored."

John blinked and took a step backwards, the pit of his stomach suddenly sinking. "Oh. You…ah…why?"

Sherlock shrugged nonchalantly and found a loose thread on his armchair incredibly absorbing. "Ididitforus," he mumbled.

John frowned. "You. Did. It. For. Us?"

Sherlock sighed and threw himself backwards in the chair in a flounce. "Yes! If one of us…if _you_ die, which is possible given your risk-taking personality, I won't be far behind you. Our demons will know each other but our souls wouldn't have done. I refuse to languish for eternity without you."

John took a moment to wrap his head around that. "You're saying you ripped yourself out of heaven so that we can go to hell together when we die?"

"We...might go to heaven."

John shot him a bemused glance and sighed. "We've done a fair bit of murdering people lately, Sherlock. I'm fairly sure that's not allowed."

"Eternal peace, John? Can you really see me enjoying that?"

He sat down on the edge of the coffee table. "The same Polish witch, I suppose?"

"Wiolka? Of course. She's extremely capable."

Sherlock had really done this, had risked his sanity and their life together for some theoretical afterlife. John knew there was _something _there—he still recalled the sense of peace and contentment between being shot and waking up as a vampire—but he wasn't certain there was anything actively conscious about life after death. It was _this_ existence he was worried about.

"You didn't think you ought to tell me you were going to do it? What if I'd come home and you'd—" He pinched the bridge of his nose. The thought of Sherlock disappearing without a trace, hating himself, hating John, made him weak. "What if you'd left like I did?"

Sherlock snorted. "I wanted to become a vampire; I harassed Mycroft until he agreed to change me before I got old and decrepit. It was a fully informed, consensual choice. I was hardly going to wake up and regret my decision a hundred and fifty years after the fact. If anything, I feel entirely vindicated. Besides, I like who I've become."

"Not…guilt-ridden, plagued by your conscience?"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Do you feel guilty for killing Moran or Hope or any of Moriarty's underlings?"

"Point." John considered him carefully. "So, how do you feel? Different?

Now that John was relenting, Sherlock sat up straighter, became less defensive. "The same, perhaps more connected. My blood needs are less…sharp."

"Um…and us? Do you still want to—I mean—"

Sherlock put on his strongest 'I'm surrounded by imbeciles' expression.

John blushed, then grinned. "Right. All right."

Sherlock worried at his bottom lip. "I admit that perhaps you were correct. I don't feel in any way essentially different, perhaps simply more, hm, _myself,_ for want of a more precise term. I may have to revise my thinking on the role of the body in defining the essential self."

John grinned despite himself. "Now who's entirely vindicated?"

Sherlock gave him a level look. "Don't let it go to your head."

"But you admit you were wrong. It was _me_ chained up on the bed, you _could_ have told me what you were planning."

"I will _admit_ that perhaps you might not have sabotaged my plan." Sherlock bit his lip and looked away, a sudden guilty expression on his features. Unspoken between them, the same thought: if John had known, had been privy to Sherlock's plan, he might not have tried to hurt himself, might not have demanded Sherlock's sexual attention, might not have fled in self-loathing and disgust when his soul was restored.

"Hey." John leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. "On the other hand, I might have buggered the whole thing up, and I won't deny I'm glad you gave me back my soul. It's fine, it really is."

Sherlock's expression split into a hopeful grin. "So—good?"

He shook his head. "You are utterly mad, and this, yeah, it's one of those things you really should have told me, but it's your body and your soul and it's done now."

Sherlock sprang forward and captured his mouth in a kiss. "Good," he said, drawing back, "because part of me hasn't ever had sex before and I want, very_ much_ want, to do that right now."

Oh. Most of John's blood rushed straight to his cock. He licked his lips and looked at Sherlock's wonderful, stupid, beautiful face. "All right," he said. "Come on, then, let's deflower you."

Sherlock's lips quirked amusedly. "Oh, John, there are so many first times I need to have. My virgin arse, my first penetration of you, my first experiences of _fellatio_ and _irrumatio_, frottage, rimming, the ball gag—"

John stopped Sherlock's mouth with a kiss and got on with it.

The end.


	13. Companion piecesequel

FYI: A companion piece to Preservation is now up on A03 (under my Mildredandbobbin). It's a bit much for Ffnet. Please read the tags first.

Chapters: 1/1  
Fandom: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms  
Rating: Explicit  
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con  
Relationships: Steph Moran/Jim Moriarty  
Characters: Jim Moriarty, Steph Moran  
Additional Tags: MorMor, fem!Moran, Extremely Dubious Consent, Borders on non-consent, Rape/Non-con Elements, Consent Issues, Het, Abuse, Sexual Violence, Smoking, Character Death, Problematic BDSM, Genderswap, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer, Buffyverse - Freeform, Spanking, Vaginal Sex, Slayer!Moran, Vampire!Moriarty  
Series: Part 2 of Preservation  
Summary:

Companion piece to Preservation (Buffyverse/Sherlock fusion). Colonel Stephanie Moran knows that if she wants Jim to stop she has to make him. The only safeword in their relationship is her boot at his throat or her stake at his heart.

PLEASE NOTE THE TAGS!


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